If My Life Were a Baseball Game

It's another stormy humid day in Northwest Ohio. A perfect day to wastefully consume memory space in the world wide web. I suppose I might as well use the space rather than let another republican conspiracy theorist use it to speculate the Barack Obama isn't American.

I love baseball. It is one of my true passions in life. As I write this I'm watching the Cubs and Mets play on WGN. I hate the Cubs and could care less about the Mets, but it's baseball. Anyone who knows me or has even heard of me knows that I bleed Cardinal red. The St. Louis Cardinals are my one true lifetime love. The story is infamous now, but I once told an ex-wife that I loved the Cardinals more than I loved her.

I also love living life. I haven't always felt that way however. There have been many times in my past when I wondered if the alternative to living wasn't a better option. There were times when I would easily spend an evening entertaining suicidal thoughts. It's been many years since I've had an evening like that. Today I live a fairly decent life and I'd like to someday tell tall tales to my great-grandchildren. What if my life were compared to a baseball game?

It's a baseball game pitting me against life. I suppose in the first innings the odds makers would have given me pretty even odds to be successful. They would have taken into consideration my genetics and environment. Although I grew up poor I also grew up in a fairly loving and somewhat supportive family. They would have scored points in my favor for the academic accolades in my early school years and likely deduced that I was well on my way to winning the baseball game in life.

An inning or two later things would have been completely flipped upside down. This is the stage of life when I would have started to enter into the early phases of alcoholism. Large quantities of alcohol poisoning my body and allowing the team of "life" to score many runs. Life scored runs with each subsequent marriage and divorce (there are two of them.) Each time I lost a job due to my immaturity and alcoholism life hit home runs and grand slams. Each time I picked up and moved to a different state seeking a new start only to have the same problems, life scored again and again. When life was at bat the bases began to look like a carousel. In these middle innings of the baseball game of life I'm sure that the ones who were interested began to drift away. Much like fans do during a literal baseball game when the outcome is all but decided, my fans started drifting towards the exits. This baseball game of life was all but over friends. Even the most diehard fans, my family and closest friends had given up all hope of a comeback.

And then something miraculous and astonishing happened. Against all odds and much to the disbelief of anyone that knew me, I got sober. A comeback at this point of the ballgame would be one of the biggest comebacks in the history of life. Yet there were glimmers of hope as I (with the support and cheers of many) began to mount a comeback. Over the last few years of life I've remained sober. These middle innings have seen a few runs scored by "life" and several scored in my favor.

The baseball game of life goes on. I don't know what inning we are in, thankfully, but I'm hoping there are a few more to play. I'm not ready to end this game yet. It's just now been fun to play these past few years. I'm not even totally certain what the score is anymore. I'm certain it's a close game and with the comeback we've had to mount to get here I'm ok with that. I am convinced that if I'm going to win this baseball game of life I'm going to have to continue to play aggressive. I'm going to have to call for the hit and run occasionally. We might have to use the squeeze play or the double steal. In this game of life I'm aware that the greater the risks the greater the potential for reward.

I also know that down the stretch in these last innings of the game I've got some all-star teammates playing with me. I've got the ultimate designated hitter in a recovery support group. They never fail to drive in runs when called upon to hit. When we get to the last innings I know I've got the ultimate closer. I've got a higher power in my life who is just waiting to come in from the bullpen to close out a successful ballgame. As the game of life continues to be played the stands have filled back up. As I step up to the plate for yet another at bat my eyes slowly scan the stands. I see my three beautiful children sitting right behind my team's dugout avidly cheering for Daddy. My family has once again returned to watch the game, cheering more loudly than every. I've got a wonderful companion in my life who is proudly wearing a jersey with my number on it in support. I've got dozens and dozens of friends who start to cheer more and more loudly as the game becomes more and more of a nail biter. I look up into the clouds and see the image of my late Father, wearing his well worn Cardinals hat no doubt, smiling from ear to ear, enjoying another great ballgame.

I don't know what the outcome of this ballgame will be my friends. That's the beauty of baseball. The fact that anything can happen. What I do know is that if I continue to stick to the fundamentals and basics of the game I will have a chance to win. It's baseball. It's life. It's rarely boring. Life is like baseball my friends. In the end there is no such thing as a bad day at the ballpark.

I hope y'all enjoy a good Thursday and never give up in your own personal "game of life."