Everyday Heroes

One of my favorite things about baseball is that it's played everyday. Unlike other sports you don't have to wait a few days or even a week for another game. I used to fall asleep with the radio on when the Red Sox were playing on the west coast and wake up with the radio still on, warning commuters of the morning danger spots, and I would race downstairs to grab the newspaper to find out how the Sox did. A win and my day was going to be great, a loss? My morning cereal wouldn't taste so good but at least there would be another game to fall asleep to that night. Like a kid on Christmas, most times the anticipation is the best thing. Maybe Mark McGwire is going to hit four home runs tonight? Maybe Roger Clemens is going to strikeout twenty tonight? Maybe the game will go into extra innings and I can stay up until three in the morning? Or more importantly, maybe my Dad and I are going to put aside our differences about what college I'm supposed to go to and enjoy a few laughs and a few hot dogs amidst a glorious September sky.

Throughout the 1998 baseball season I kept a diary. I did this for two reasons: One, so that I would follow the game I loved just a bit closer. I came to look forward to every summer Sunday when I'd sit with a hot cup of coffee and the newspaper and jot down divisional leaders and individual leaders for the week. It became a great escape from work or the pressures of planning my upcoming wedding. I watched the ESPN doubleheader every Wednesday with a notebook in hand and I got even more aggravated when my Red Sox lost yet another one in the late innings.

The second reason I kept a diary was in case I have children I wanted them to know just what I was doing and what my thoughts were during the summer of 1998. I often ask my Dad about Ted Williams and Joe Dimaggio, and he ends up telling me stories about his life during those years. Whether it be him working in the bowling alley during the Depression, or stories of life during the Korean War, or my favorite one about how he got a hit against an eventual major league pitcher during his Park League days, baseball always led to a discussion of more important things. I learned so much about what kind of man my Father was through baseball. I would love to be able to read a diary of my Dad's, to be able to see and feel just what he thought of Stan Musial and Hank Aaron. To be able to read his thoughts after going to a doubleheader with his friends at Braves field, to read about how his relationship developed with my mother. With that in mind, I didn't want my diary to be merely a collection of facts and events from the 1998 season. I wanted my diary to be opinionated and as much about the people I love as about baseball. Soon, I was writing more about my mother, my father, and my soon to be wife than I was Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Nomar Garciaparra. I came to realize that a person doesn't need to hit seventy home runs or strike out twenty hitters in a game to be a hero. I realized I had many heroes; some drove bookmobiles, others patrolled dangerous city streets, while others taught underprivileged kids how to smile and feel good about themselves.

I realized the father who rushes home from his "full time" job to deliver pizzas on Friday night so his son can go to a decent college is a much better "clutch performer" than the player who leads the National League in two out RBI. I learned the person who goes to AA meetings and waits tables in order to pay the rent is every bit the man Mark McGwire is. From my diary I've put together a collection of essays that celebrate the everyday working man and those special moments in life when even the lowliest of batters can feel like Mark McGwire, if only for a brief instant. These essays are about my friends, my family, my wife, and special moments in life that are far more important than any game could ever be, even our National Pastime. Each essay is preceded by an actual entry from my journal that summer.

In 1994 many fans felt badly hurt and used when the baseball players went on strike. Maybe it's time we used baseball and it's special summer of 1998 to honor some of the good that exists in our lives today. If you're looking for another book worshipping baseball players, you've come to the wrong place. In the summer of 98, I learned that real heroes do exist in everyday life. I'd like to introduce you to a few of mine.