Mom, Baseball, and Lessons for Life

“We live in hope. We live in hope. “That was my mother’s favorite expression. However, Mom was not talking about the resurrection, but about baseball. You see, my mother was a die-hard baseball fan.

She rooted for the Cleveland Indians because we lived there for four years and used to ride the street car to the games, back when a family could afford to go to the game and eat and back when the ball park could safely give out baseball bats to the fans. She rooted for the teams that played against the New York Yankees because they were too powerful in those days and when we lived in New York for six years, she detested the voice and mannerisms of Mel Allen, the radio announcer for the Yankees. She rooted for the Tigers when we moved to Michigan. She once told me that the Tigers came closest to breaking her heart. “They do seem to tease me and then let me down once again. But then, we live in hope, we live in hope.” Mom also rooted for the Braves whenever Warren pitched. When my mother died, her last words to the nurse were, “I had a great day yesterday. All my teams won,” I knew the, Indians and Tigers had won and so had whatever team played the Yankees. Warren had retired by then.

There was a time when rooting for multiple teams caused problems. Detroit versus the Cleveland Indians, no problem. We lived closer to Detroit, but on the other hand, she wasn’t too upset if Cleveland won. When Cleveland went to the World Series against the Boston Braves in 1948, we had just moved to New York and all felt homesick. Cleveland’s cinching the American League pennant was cause for celebration and a special dinner, but while the oven was still pre-heating, I put a damper on Mom’s mood with my question. “But Mom, what about Warren?” My Dad swore, and Mom went to the bedroom to recover.

Warren (the Invincible) Spahn was like a seldom-seen, but much-loved relative for us. He was a leftie pitcher for the Braves franchise and we knew him from our days in Evansville, watching the Braves farm team. My memories say that I watched him for years in my pre-school days, but the reality is that we saw him for a few months in the summer of ’42 and then he made his Major League debut the end of that season. Then he went into the service until 1946. For years, where other families asked, “How was your day?” we asked, “How did Warren do today?” In 1948, the Indians won 4-2 and Warren was 1-1.

Even though Mom must often have felt like the patron saint of lost causes for the most part she did keep her hope alive. When her teams had really bad streaks, she would write down improvement strategies in an old ledger, or she would organize a group of friends to go to the Ladies day doubleheader, or when things were really awful, she would spend an afternoon adding to her stacks of homemade scorecards that she would use to diagram the plays in future games as she listened on the radio. It seems to me now that she was visualizing drawing in the lines that would represent doubles, triples, and homeruns, a living into hope.

Baseball was never off-season with Mom. I was probably the only kid at my school whose Mom subscribed to the Sporting News. She thought through possible trades, she poured over the records on her scorecards, and she looked forward to spring training. Following the news from Florida and Arizona energized her and she seemed to be getting in shape for the coming season.

I wish Mom had gone to spring training. She accomplished so much at a distance, what would really going have been like for her? I learned a lot from her about loyalty, getting through tough times, hanging on to hope, and having fun for little money.

As I write this on a very cold and snowy day, I realize that Mom would be burrowing down in some serious contemplation about the coming season. Lent is at hand and so is the season for thinking about our relationship with God. What are the joys and where is the pain? Where are you in becoming God’s dream for you? God bless!