Life Happens at the Ballpark

Since 1997, we have spent much of every summer at Greer Stadium, though our time is divided now between Sounds games and Harry's Little League schedule with the Nashville Heat. Greer is just five minutes away from where we live, and we'll head over there at a moment's notice. With that proximity, we'll take a chance on a game even if we hear on the radio that the Sounds are down, 7-2 in the top of the 8th, as they were recently against the Oklahoma Redhawks. That didn't deter us. We posses the inherent optimistic nature of true baseball fans; as one of the only team sports with no time limit, we know that anything can, and frequently does, happen. You get three outs an inning, 27 outs a game if you need 'em, no matter what. And as long as you hold that last out at bay, your team still has a chance. The Sounds came back to win, 8-7, in the bottom of the 9th.

Our first week back at Greer this year, David said the same thing he has said every year for the last eight: "I can't believe how much you kids have grown since last summer!"

Neither can I. At a recent Friday night game against Tucson, Harry and his friend Nate sat with me until they had been fed, then took off for the picnic area behind the right field wall where they met up with some 13-year-old girls; it must have been pheromones that lured them from 500 feet away. En route, they found Joy and Matt, her first serious boyfriend; they had peeled off from us the minute we walked in the park. If I turned over my right shoulder and leaned forward in my seat, I could see them in the last row of Section PP, under the CompUSA sign. I don't think the two of them saw a single play of the game, so engrossed they were in each other.

For much of the game, I sat by myself, one eye on the action on the field, the other keeping tabs on my kids, who these days are taking leave of their childhood as quickly as the runner sprints for the next base when the pitcher releases the ball. In my third eye, the one in my mind, I still see them at 5 and 7, eating ice cream out of little baseball helmets, chocolate all over their faces and clothes; at 6 and 8, in a darkened stadium after a Saturday night game, faces turned upward as fireworks explode in the summer sky; at 8 and 10, jumping up and down, gloves on their hands, hoping the relief pitcher will throw the foul ball their way; at 9 and 11, joyfully running the bases after the game; at 12 and 14, studying the scoreboard, keeping track of the major league games that night. And now, at 13 and 15, flirting with respective love interests. Unlike baseball, childhood does run out of time.

In my head, I know that a new ballpark will be good for the team, good for fans, good for downtown. But in my heart, I know that when Greer Stadium closes, a stage on which a defining time of our lives was played will be gone forever. That's why you'll find us, until the last day of the last season, in our seats along the third-base side, above a glorious field of dreams, safe in the embrace of home, pretending we have all the time in the world. It's not over 'til it's over.