By: Sean Millerick Follow me on Twitter and the website, Call to the Pen.
I’m a Miami Marlins fan; more specifically a Marlins fan born in Miami Beach in 1984. Basically, I didn’t have a hometown tie to baseball until I was nine years old. I have no heartwarming little league stories to share in this space. My father and his three brothers only cared about football, and there was plenty going on football wise to warrant that kind of singlemindedness. Dan Marino setting records, the Miami Hurricanes racking up championships. No basketball, no hockey, and no baseball in South Florida yet- Miami was a one sport town then. Now my mom’s side was based out of Illinois, which meant I had a couple cousins who sometimes mentioned the Cubs or the White Sox. Still, they were all rather taken with some Michael Jordan guy for much of my childhood.
Which made it really weird in hindsight when the entire family fell in love with Field of Dreams. And not just bought the VHS loved, though we did do that too, but drove out to Dyersville, Iowa to visit the field loved. Yep, one of the very first times I hit a baseball was on the actual Field of Dreams. It left an impression.
Suddenly, we’d bought some gloves. “Having a catch” meant football and baseball. It was around then that news broke Miami was getting a baseball team. Five years later, that team was in the World Series. And as Craig Counsell reached, and rocketed off of, home plate in the bottom of the 11th of Game 7 to deliver Miami the title, my parents and I were there to see it. I was hooked.
Since then, baseball has meant excessive escapism. Football offered that just one day a week, two once I discovered the college version. Baseball though- it’s a six-month marathon, with almost daily action. It’s always there to boost your spirits. Miami’s two world championships? The first came during a really awkward and unhappy year in middle school, the other during what felt at the time like a world ending breakup. Back in high school, nervous and/or apathetic about finding dates for prom, a bunch of us realized that even lower deck seats for that night’s Mets-Marlins showdown were a lot cheaper than tuxes and limos. During a year where I was stuck in a job that I hated, and the only year that I’ve lived apart from the woman I would end up marrying, Miami almost made the playoffs despite being twenty games under .500 at one point. I spent most of that summer and fall at The Stadium Formerly Known as Joe Robbie, culminating in seeing an Anibal Sanchez no-hitter. Still have the ticket stub from that one.
Baseball has also meant exploration. Fifteen years ago, I had been to just two baseball stadiums. But starting with an OG Yankee Stadium visit before setting off to Europe with my girlfriend, I’ve worked my way up to twenty-two MLB ballparks. Despite this quest to check off all thirty of them, the girlfriend hung around anyway, even consenting to marry me along the way. Certainly, there have been some cool baseball moments: I got to see Ichiro pass Pete Rose for professional hits in San Diego, a few days after getting his autograph in Arizona. I’ve spent the Fourth of July at Busch Stadium, and one year went to three separate Opening Days in a one week stretch. I’ve gotten to rejoice in walk-off Marlins wins when home fans were rude, sing Sweet Caroline with the Fenway faithful when the Yankees were in town, and even made it to an All-Star Game and Home Run Derby.
However, the strictly baseball moments almost all pale in comparison to the moments set up by that passion for baseball that drove me to these cities to begin with. Thanks to baseball, I’ve hiked through twelve inches of snow in Yosemite- in July. I’ve met a bunch of great people from all over the world in a pair of excellent hostels in Philadelphia and Toronto…and gained a new appreciation for my own pillow thanks to some poor lodging choices in Ohio. I’ve seen some fascinating art in Denver and Pittsburgh, some stunning aquariums in Atlanta and Seattle, and many, many breweries in California. For almost all of that, eighteen of twenty-two parks, my wife has been right by my side. While there have definitely been times where baseball has perhaps been a source of tension in the household- generally around the end of April when my she remembers there are 132 of these games left- I also truly believe our trips together richen and strengthen our relationship. Some of them might have happened without baseball, but a lot of them wouldn’t have.
Lastly, baseball has given me what might honestly be my first true professional aspiration. I enjoy what I do at the moment, and I like to think I’m alright at it- but I love writing. It would be a dream to catch on in some capacity, on some platform, either just amusing or genuinely informing others who care as much about baseball as I do. Very likely I’m late to the party on that, but as they say, that’s why they play the games.
So, what does baseball mean to me? It’s a good question to ask these days, as it’s hard to shake the feeling it means a lot more to me than it does to many an MLB owner. Saying baseball is life, or something like that, would be rather dramatic. But saying baseball has enriched my life, made it better? That’d be an understatement