More Than a Game

By: Mike Carter

My word, I am tired.  We are tired.

We are coming up on the end of the second year of a global pandemic. By now everyone who reads these words will have had some firsthand experience with the devil named Covid-19; either you have had it or one of its variants, or a loved one has, at the very least, someone you know. I hope you have not lost a loved one to it. The emotional and physical struggle with this beast has proven more than difficult for even the best and toughest among us.

I am beat.

We turn on the “news” to find out what is going on, and it’s almost always grim. It’s political. It’s angry people. It’s unwinding the aftermath of last January 6^th and the riot on Capitol Hill. It’s the general mistrust we seem to have for anyone who may think differently than we do on any number of topics. 

It’s the labor strife currently in MLB. The two sides met last week, solved nothing (not that we expected much movement) while continuing to hide behind “improving the game.”  I would appreciate it more if they would just call it what it is; don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. It’s about money, same as most things in this world are. It’s who has the money, who wants more of the money, and how to split a pot most of us can only dream about in our wildest fantasies. 

I don’t begrudge either side. Just be honest. Do any of us believe that either side has the best interest of the game at heart?  Be serious. The MLBPA and owners have had 43 days to sit down at the table and start hashing out a new collective bargaining agreement. They sat down last week for an hour. I am not hopeful that baseball will start on time, but I am guessing that when players and owners start losing money, which will be in less than six weeks, the impetus to get deal on paper will increase tenfold.

I will say this again: I do not begrudge the players getting their money. Careers are shorter than ever now, and they need to maximize their earning potential. I get that, within reason. I know players are not teachers like me, have a far higher skill level than me in everything. The average major league salary in 2021 was $4.17 million. The median income is $1.1 million.  For the heck of it, this morning I determined that to make the median income for me, I would have to work almost 11 years. To make the average salary, I would need to work almost 41 years. I know I am a simple teacher, but that’s insane, isn’t it?

I find myself trying to grab a hold of something each day that allows me to have some positivity or levity. I do not know if you feel the same way, but I feel surrounded by negativity that often seems to be closing in day by day. I keep looking, as many of us do, for things that fill the void that Covid has helped to create for so many of us. Baseball fills that void for me in so many ways. Although now I have had to shift to protect myself from being hurt…again…by another stoppage.

So, here’s what I am trying to do.  If the weather is decent, I am out trying to get some air, playing catch with Jack. He’s developing an arm now. He’s 11 and he’s into it, and taking weekly hitting lessons at our local facility, the Dawg Pound, with a wonderful coach.  At the end of his fall season, Jack approached me about taking hitting lessons. He’s serious about improvement. He’s had the yips and has spent much of the last year as a true two outcome player: strikeout or walk. His coach is building confidence in him, he has new lumber, and he is feeling good and looking better at the plate.

That’s what hit me. My love of baseball is more granular than watching the MLB game. I love going to any game, from five-year-old kids playing rookie ball to the minor leagues. My love of the game transcends what I can consume of the game’s highest level. It’s these little bits of things that I love: watching Jack smile when he gets that great feeling of solid contact in his forearms, playing catch with him in the alley behind the house and seeing him develop like he is, becoming a young adult before my very eyes. It’s the watching of old baseball videos together. That’s the thing, right?  It’s the together thing that far surpasses my feelings about the lack of a collective bargaining agreement.

Because all this mess will be resolved one way or the other, and we as fans will debate it for the length of the agreement. Billionaires will remain billionaires, and millionaires will remain millionaires. And hopefully the younger players get something out of it too. But what will really change?  We will still be watching the games when the strife is over. This time will end.

I find that I need to remind myself that every time of life ends, and that time is just time. My time being a father to little ones has passed; Ellie is 15, making her way through her freshman year of high school, and a wonderful, bright, compassionate young woman in a difficult world. Jack is 11, precocious and inquisitive, halfway through fifth grade, almost to junior high. The one thing I do know is that time passes, and it goes insanely quickly, despite the fact that we have been embroiled in a pandemic for almost two full years, and time seems to really draw out interminably some weeks.  It keeps going and pays no attention to us. Where has the time gone?  I am closing in on 50, and the body clearly knows this, even if my mind is still that of a younger man. Use your time. You don’t get a helluva lot of it here on this madcap, spinning orb.

I will keep playing catch with my son, taking him to his hitting lessons, playing the Neanderthal poetry game with the kids when we can, watching laughable TV with them. On weekend winter mornings, I sit with the blinds open so I can sit in the sun; it’s the perfect slant of light coming into my living room, and I can read and watch the sun come up, like an old dog. It’s often the best part of my day before other people intervene and ruin the moments of peace. In between I will be contemplating the freshly retired Jon Lester’s Hall of Fame case. 

Let’s hope that next month when we “chat” that we have some traction towards a collective bargaining deal. Stay warm, stay well, and stay safe. Find your little moments of joy each day.