I am a cynic wrapped in a skeptic cloaked in a contrarian.
I question and I scoff. My template is leery. I mistrust common wisdom and conspiracy theory equally, and consensus is starting to make a strong run to join the party. I live in a brain congested by self-awareness, so I examine pretty much every act for selfishness and self-interest.
To believe in something absolutely, I must start my process with absolute doubt. It’s just how I am wired.
And yet …
Baseball.
There is something about it. Something that makes me lower my guard. Take back a partner, I should have so much doubt about.
And I think I got a better idea why while watching the Don Mattingly documentary that will premiere on MLB Network on Sunday. I received an advanced copy because I was one of the talking heads in it. I left the hour-plus of “Donnie Baseball” with one thought about watching another person’s passion and diligence toward the game, and his teary appreciation for how his father raised him — my dad would have loved this.
Murry (yeah, he spelled it without the “a”) Sherman is why I come back each season with enthusiasm and anticipation, and, yes, joy to a relationship that is hardly ever fully reciprocal. My dad and I shared so much, but there was nothing we shared like baseball. From him teaching me the game to us getting lost in lists of best of this and worst of that, and recollections of him sneaking into Ebbets Field, a Yankees fan watching Dodgers games.
My dad was not a cynic, not a skeptic, not a contrarian. All you had to do was talk baseball with him to know that. For he could make you see Mickey Mantle, the way he saw Mantle while never needing to downgrade Mike Trout to do it. Hell, as he got older he would tell me he was taking a nap during the day because the Angels were playing the Yankees that evening, and he wanted to be sure to see Trout. He was a Yankees fan, who loved to watch Jacob deGrom pitch.
My mom passed away on the final day of the 1998 season — I was in a pressbox in Atlanta — and I made it my mission to talk to my dad every day from there forward. If you had logs of the calls, they were 75 percent baseball. Especially during the season. He loved few things more than his annual sojourn to spring training to see me and watch games. When his body became too uncooperative these last few years, he could not wait for the daily spring call — and neither could I — when he would ask about a prospect getting buzz or a new addition to one of the New York clubs.
It is why this season is going to be so different for me, my first full one without the person who by imbuing his combination of work ethic and love for the game into me literally gave me a career. I was about to tweet last trade deadline, July 30, that the Mets were getting Javier Baez, when I got a call from the hospital where he had been for weeks. My dad was crashing. I was his medical proxy. I had to authorize life-saving measures. They worked. Temporarily.
He would not survive the night. The horror worsened because I could not even go to the hospital, having contracted COVID caring for him while he had the virus. A kind nurse allowed me to sit bedside with him via FaceTime. And in the last hour of his life — him unconscious and with tubes everywhere — I sat in front of the TV, spun the picture as if he could see it, and together we watched Aroldis Chapman close out the Marlins. It is the last moments I had with my hero. Watching baseball.
There are many places he continues to live. One will begin anew Thursday. I will get to a ballpark early — my father’s blood in me. My dad’s nickname was “Murry in a Hurry.” He would have rather been two hours early than two minutes late. But I love to get there first. To have the pressbox to myself, if possible. To be unhurried. Quiet. To look out on the field and the possibility.
I will forever report and write with cynicism, skepticism, contrarianism. But I will not look on a field with it. I will not see the potential of a season in that way. I come back to the canvas each year as my dad did — open heart, open mind, open to the idea of seeing what I have never seen before.
I want to fall for it all again. I want to see just how far Aaron Judge can hit a baseball. I want to see Juan Soto turn every at-bat into a duel embellished by his flair, self-confidence and skill. I want to see Byron Buxton go to the gaps. I want to see Trea Turner go first to third. I want to see Shohei Ohtani do everything. And Trout channel Mantle again.
I want to see Max Scherzer’s fury. I want to see Noah Syndergaard’s comeback. I want to see Luis Robert blossom into one of the great stars of the game. I want to see the debuts of Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt Jr. I want to see just how good Wander Franco, who turned 21 in March, can be. I want to see Albert Pujols, twice as old as Franco, take his last lap. In St. Louis.
I want to see if Carlos Correa can revive the Twins, and if Corey Seager and Marcus Semien can do the same with the Rangers. I want Ronald Acuna Jr.’s knee and Fernando Tatis Jr.’s wrist healed, because their stories can end up in Cooperstown. I want the only three letters we care about with deGrom not to be MRI, but ERA — as in, how low can it go?
I want DJ LeMahieu going to right field again, and Giancarlo Stanton making me rush to Statcast to see just how hard a human can hit a baseball. I want Francisco Lindor to find Mr. Smile for a full season, because that means his suitcase of skills will be on full display.
What I want most I can’t have any longer — a season of daily phone calls to discuss it with my dad. But I can have what he gave me when I look out on a new season.
Optimism.
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April 02, 2022 at 11:52PM
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A father’s lasting impact on game of baseball: Optimism - New York Post
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