As the cliché goes, a lot can happen during the span of 162
games. Yes, on the field, but a helluva lot of life can happen in the meantime.
Since the baseball season unfolds nearly every day from spring bloom to when
trick-or-treat candy lines the shelves at Giant Eagle, it coincides with life’s
gradual advance.
A component of the major league game that has always
captivated me is that a baseball season is like a mixtape. Let me explain. A
mixtape is composed of a hodgepodge of songs. Each of the songs steers your
memory into a U-turn towards the time and place, and distinct feelings you
experienced when you first heard the songs on FM radio, or late night on MTV.
(That’s the effect mixtapes had on this Gen X’er, anyway.)
When I reflect on Pittsburgh Pirates seasons of the past
decade I simultaneously relive whatever “life” was transpiring at the time. For
instance, when I think to when the Pirates peaked in the summers of both 2011
and 2012 – those quasi-resurgent campaigns – I was on vacation at Rehoboth
Beach with the family. So, the start of the Pirates’ collapses and pleasant
memories of the rising tide are married. (Of course, after two years I came to
believe that my taking a vacation cursed the team and stalled the rebuild). I remember
Freddy Sanchez’s summer-long chase to claim the batting crown, circa 2006,
coinciding with gradually falling for my wife-to-be. I vividly recall the
ghastly collapse of 2012. Amid the night-after-night gut punches, I published
my novel and experienced the birth of my son, Uri. (“Pirates flag outside”).
Until early August that year, I thought the squirt might actually be born
during an exhilarating playoff run. Nope. Uri was born on a night the Houston
Astros pretty much put the fourteen final nail in the coffin. Yeah, I watched
that in the maternity ward.
The only span during the baseball season when nothing
happens on the diamond, but life plows onward, is during the All Star break.
And here we are. I’d like to stop a moment at the signpost that reads “welcome
to baseball’s second half” and briefly reflect on baseball, life, and the loss
of a certain back deck.
Yes, I’m leaving my sanctuary.
As a fan, the 2015 Pittsburgh Pirates season began like any
other, writing for RumBunter notwithstanding. After enduring a brutal winter
along with my North Eastern brethren, my schedule for the upcoming summer was
unoccupied, and my anticipation of a division crown was teeming. The snow on
the back deck gradually melted, and dripped through the planks and on my kayak
below. Before long, I swept the cobwebs off my trusty radio, snatched the IPAs
from the fridge, and took up residence on the deck. No sleep until November,
hopefully.
I followed the first few months of the season without
real-world life events complicating my fandom. At first, the Pirates
disappointed. Early speculation swirled about the severity of Andrew
McCutchen‘s “lower body” issues. “Is he impaired? If so, how is the injury
affecting his mechanics? For god’s sake, how do you explain his pitiful
average? Awwwwwww!” Francisco Cervelli immediately impressed with his sweet
bat, superb pitching framing ability, and firecracker personality. After
Russell Martin signed elsewhere, Uncle Frank’s presence softened the impact of
the collective plunge into the Allegheny River after a Bucco Nation suicide
jump from the Roberto Clemente Bridge. And Gerrit Cole appeared every bit the
ace that fans had hoped he’d become since being drafted first overall in
2011.Still, the team repeated its 2014 early-season struggles. Even so, I
followed nearly every moment of every game. My Back Deck Reports are testimony.
Memories of this time of my life outside are uneventful:
working, fathering, husbanding, writing, kicking rocks down quiet alleys while
whistling Ziggy Stardust, and following the Bucs.
As the Pirates season began to change in mid-May, so did my
life. Whereas the Pirates gained in the standings, I lost…my beloved back deck.
The deck is now under contract to be purchased, along with my home, by someone
I will never meet. The Bower family is moving up, apparently.
At least the Pirates are surging toward the pinnacle of the
NL Central. Yes, they look like the team we hoped for. Before he returned to
the DL, Josh Harrison had begun to recapture the magic of his out-of-right
field 2014 campaign. A.J. Burnett has peaked at age 38, and will don an
All-Star jersey for the first time in his 17-year career. Cutch has become
Cutch again. The Pirates have roared back to contention. As of the All-Star
break, the team sits 2.5 games back of the Cardinals.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the recent two-month resurgence.
Thoroughly. What beats the final two walk-off victories of the latest Cardinals
series? Now THAT’S redemption for those three disheartening walk-off Cardinal
victories in St. Louis in early May. But when the snow swirls again, and I day
dream back to the time when the Bucs ripped the (black) hearts out of the
Cardinals two nights in a row, the vague sense of the anxiety of buying and
selling a house, and bequeathing my deck, will coil around my nerves again.
My only venture onto the back deck in the last few weeks was
to set up the patio furniture for the open house. I can’t bear to feel the
grimy planks under my bare feet. I can’t enjoy relaxing on it and listening to
a Pirates game anymore. I feel like the deck is an old girlfriend who still
lives under the same roof; we’re both waiting in awkward silence, trying to
ignore one another, until her new boyfriend picks her up in his piece of crap
Chevy S-10.
Come mid-August The Bower family will living in our new home.
No back deck, just a front porch without a roof. However, the back yard has a
sprawling view of downtown and Oakland. I’ll listen Bob Walk‘s dry wit and
shoot at the Met Life blimp with a BB gun.
My wish is that my first memories of the new home coincide
with memories of the Pirates stampede to a NL Central division championship.
Someday, I want to fondly recall unpacking boxes in the new living room while
Greg Brown shouts “Frightfully Bully.” I want to joyously relive ripping down
the old wallpaper in the new kitchen while Steve Blass yells “Oh my god! Oh my
god! Oh my god!” after a walk-off dinger. I want to blow off painting the new
bedroom so I can attend the tickertape parade downtown in late October.
Crap. I fear I just jinxed the season. Apologies.
Goodbye, back deck. We’ve suffered countless soul-wrenching
Pirates defeats, but celebrated a few victories too (the campaign bath in
2013). You’ve heard me curse Ronny Cedeno, and praise Pedro Alavarez (like,
once or twice). I’m leaving you to a new owner. But I’ve vetted him. He’s not a
Cardinals fan (or a Brewers/Reds/Cubs/lite beer fan).
We raised it good, my old friend.
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