Baseball
carries death. Ed Casey was cleaning the
dishes and suddenly he was having one of those deep moments when one of the mysteries
of life was clear to him.
His father was
sitting next to him on the school bus.
Men were smoking in the school bus.
They laughed and cracked open cans of beers and passed them inside the
school bus. Some cans sprayed out, and a
few times the cold beer showered around him.
He was waiting for something to drink. It was hot in the bus. There were words on the metal surface, but he
was too young to read at the time. He
recognized the letters. There was a drawing,
but he could not tell what it was. He
looked back and saw one old man sitting on the edge of his seat, his feet were
in the aisle. The old man winked at him
and he looked back to the front.
“Are
you having fun yet?”
“I’m
thirsty.”
“Going
to see the great Willie Mays, this is so much fun.”
The
men belonged to a club his father explained, a local rotary club, but he was
not interested. He wanted something to
drink.
He
turned back around and looked at the old man.
His eyes rolled back, and he fell into the aisle of the bus. It was the heat someone said. Get him some air someone said. The men
were trying to get the old man to wake up, but he was not moving.
The
bus stopped and an ambulance crew came on the bus and carried the old man off.
“What
happened to him?”
“They’re
taking him to a park and let him rest next to a tree.”
He
wasn’t sure what his father meant, but he imagined the old man, sort of dazed
from the heat, sitting on the ground with his back against the tree. Alone and not sure when the bus would come
back and pick him up. Those facts were not
made clear to the young Ed.
At
the game, his old man bought him a blue plastic batter’s helmet with an orange plastic
band that had to be adjusted to fit his small head. He was given an American Cheese sandwich in
wax paper, a small bag of Wise potato chips and a grocery store soda wrapped in
aluminum foil to keep it cool. And
remembers watching Willie Mays get up to bat.
But his mind went back the old man sitting against a tree in the
park.
When
they arrived home, his mother yelled at his father since he was drunk.
Roberto
Clemente died in a plane crash; a few years later, same happened to Thurman Munson
when he was flying his plane. There was Donnie
Moore, a pitcher for the Angels who committed suicide after he shot his wife. Lou Gehrig.
Babe Ruth giving his last raspy voiced farewell speech. Gil Hodges. They all died.
Ed
put the last dish on the rack to dry.
That day Whitey Ford died and he recalled seeing Ford throw out of the
ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium when the Yanks played The Mets in
2000. The chairman lived to 91. But back then he was just getting over
cancer.
Ed
sat in the living room and checked the apps, his email and felt the night
settling in. His parents were back on Long
Island. He was alone in his house and
yet the sound of the cars rushing by the highway and the isolation was
peace. Like the old man leaning against
the tree in the park, baseball carries death, much like life.
