“Everything passes, everything changes, just do what you think you should do.” – Bob Dylan, — To Ramona
The blank page is a void we must fill.
The empty stadium is a palace we must glorify.
The abandoned, snow-dusted field is just cause for melancholy.
I saw a great movie once, one line always stuck out, more than the others. “Nature’s cruel, Staros.”
Nature’s cruel. The two characters talking represent the dualistic nature of man. Yeah, two thumbs up.
I heard a song once, it said: In the still of the night / in the world’s ancient light / where wisdom rose up in strife / my bewildered brain / toils in vain / through the darkness on the pathways of life.*
The deepness is majestic. There comes a time when certain tasks are expected of us. Spend enough time around here, and these mandatory assignments can begin to resemble an all-encompassing proposition. We seek art and entertainment as means to escape the undue pressure. Ain’t it the truth? There is freedom there, to create and interpret, on our terms, on our time.
So a brilliant song lyric helps us drift away. An epic movie grabs us. We are free. From those damn clocks, running our lives.
There are different methods, for different people. Heck, some of us try making a career out of stopping time, and they are blessed if they can, talent to thank. I don’t know how talented I am. I don’t if I can reach people with my work on that core human level. I want to. I’ve wanted many things.
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My father is very passionate about a game called baseball. The game would help him develop a relationship with his sons. The whole time, we were always caught up thinking it was a “sport”, or “competition”. It wasn’t until much later in life that I had realized my grievous error. It was in perspective. I’d begun writing seriously about it by then, daydreaming about article ideas in the outfield during my last game, reaching the sad epiphany that the childhood dream was dead and about to be replaced by something far more complicated, something I’d never really understand. The aggravation of it all… the maddening abstraction… who was I now, without my simple dream of playing baseball?
And yes. Playing baseball is art. Realized that far too late. The activity, like writing, painting, or anything else, is an entirely unconscious act. These words and phrases, placed together on the page, symbols and dots and question marks… they are supposed to mean something. And the game, with its bases and walls and foul lines, it’s supposed to mean something. The great athlete and the great artist are tapping into the same source.
My problem was pressing. Nerves. Rattling through my mind, late game errors haunting my nightmares. The second I started thinking, analyzing, and diagnosing this game, that was the second it had slipped totally from my grasp, nevermore. The talent is within us. Deep. Surface thoughts were a veil I never lifted. Surface thoughts… it became torture. Out in right field, down a steep incline. Hoping and praying a ball wouldn’t be hit to me. By the end, the last game, my hands were shaking. Of the physical tools, I possessed little. Probably enough for a division 2 college career. Mentally? I wasn’t enlightened. Game over.
Now, all we had left to share was Yankee Baseball.
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My first game there was a real blazer, in ’93. It was hot. The Yankees came back on the Angels, late. They were down 8-1 or something. Rallied and won. From my upper-deck seat, the ball appeared a snowball, flying around, serving the whims of gravitation. It was all I watched… the snowball in the blistering sun…. Slicing through the infield and the sliding men trying to grab it… the snowball… soaring over the fence as the crowd reacts favorably… the snowball… it was everything. I was only vaguely aware that the Yankees had won. It mattered little. I had just seen a show. And I was hooked.
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The years sighed, whispering absently in our ears. I was 11, caught a playoff game. Yankees dominated the Texas Rangers. Had great seats, near the home dugout. Don Zimmer got hit in the head. The details are sketchy. My dog Lucky was in excellent health. My family was pressing through the tide of time, holding down jobs, providing opportunities for me to enjoy baseball games. I had friends, then, the long-time variety. In a transient world, I had found stability. And it felt consistent. Like it would always be there. The same people meeting me through these intermittent days… sharing our joys and woe…Lucky waiting anxiously by the door. Shall we play wiffle-ball?
This is it…. us… together through life.
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Upheaval becomes me. Circumstances shift. Relationships disintegrate. People should act less surprised, seeing their ideal plans set ablaze.. Times change, man. We change, man. Nothing remains. And nothing is revealed.
2003 now. And I am aging. No longer a kid. Feeling numb to the wonder of the world… the electricity preceding a rainstorm… that did remain a favorite. But I was beginning to feel detached. In the toughest days, happiness and joy just weren’t emotions I could relate to. There was always the Stadium, though. Caught a game in 2003, Weaver stifled the Blue Jays on a freezing afternoon. A fog rolled over, the players appearing ethereal, wondering through a strange circumstance beyond them. It was over quick.
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It was home. The pungent smell of the corridors. Nearly impossible to describe… must have been crushed mustard packets melted into the concrete to go with sweat and heavy history. The dangerous, narrow aisles, the peeling cement concourses, the affable vendors launching pretzels three rows up, the soundtrack, easygoing before all the chaos, lost tourists unsure of their seats, fans arriving late in a wrong colored hat before being taunted and ridiculed. The stoic security guards, the desperate drunks, oh, and the smell. You knew exactly where you were. Consistency in a world of transience…
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We have season tickets now. For the 2005 season… a season I will forever look back fondly on. The change refused to yield, and I am weary. I feel like a Ghost sometimes, and write a screenplay about it. My first. A terrible effort… I intend to be a writer, a serious one at that, but the failure of this initial attempt will take much strength, and a healthy dose of delusion, to overcome. Oh, how the reviewer skewered it, and me, words like poison dripping from his E-Mail, another dream peeling away. Last time I didn’t have the mind. This time I might not have talent. How perfectly ironic…
Remember a ’05 game. Tony Womack hit a game winning single, bailing out Tom Gordon, who had coughed up Chien-Ming Wang’s lead. Wang was making his first start. My father and I were both impressed. We communicate best when talking about baseball. Gordon was booed. Struggling. He ended up having another fantastic season setting up Mariano. That team will always have a special place in my heart. Our seats are upper-deck, and nearly directly behind home plate. It will be this way for a while.
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My brother and I aren’t acknowledging the finality, because it just doesn’t seem real. Satisfied that there was no way this could possibly be happening, despite incredibly convincing evidence to the contrary, this is our last game at the Stadium. It’s 2008. These seats, same since ’05, have treated us beautifully. We love them. Our perch affords a perfect view: nasty breaking balls flung from a relief pitcher’s hand, the arch and trajectory. We recognize immediately whether a high fly ball has been touched by the sweet spot. We sit back, talk about the game, talk about the series, talk about the season, talk about life. On a sunny day, the rays dance on your face. And luckily enough, there’s an occasional breeze. This can’t be heaven. It’s a baseball stadium. Cost the city millions of dollars back in the day, money that could have gone elsewhere. It’s been criticized, certainly not accepted as a “cathedral”, though the Yankees have a different opinion. No… no… not with this sound system, and repetitive in-game entertainment, and the amenities, hell might have even had better amenities as a matter of fact… Yankee Stadium was not paradise. But they played baseball there.
I’d written another script. This one was called “Ashes of New York”. It felt like an artistic breakthrough, and the weeks after I finished were filled with the cautious hope that I’d actually written something… good. Professional. Correct format, engaging story and characters, and finally someone out there agreed, and it probably saved my dream. There would be no dramatic bidding war, barely any notice at all. But that which I received, emotionally, would keep driving me, from here until who knows where? The talent was there, though. The unsure boy was gone now. Demolished by a Union Crew with a wrecking ball. Progress is painful. This applies to most things.
I took pictures. Plenty. A walk-off hit won the game. As I departed, I refused to acknowledge a deep down sensation that something was wrong. Time she runs, time she goes.
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There was supposed to be a game tonight. It was rained out. Would have been my first time attending the new Yankee Stadium. Unfortunate. My dog Lucky passed away months ago. Sometimes I think about how stiff her legs were, after the vet put that shot in. She was no longer moving. I saw her last moments. And it upsets me. So I try not dwelling on it. There were so many happy times. I felt like I should have never seen her like that. Never. It should not have happened.
My grandmother passed last week. She had lived a long life, of faith and fire. Went in her sleep. The questions are endless. Why should we age? Why should we die?
Our escape transcends the flesh. It should be celebrated, absolutely. Concerts, games, art exhibitions, this is important. Besides our love, it could be all we have.
Our lives are in a state of constant change, along with the world we inhabit. Nobody stays the same. Nobody lives forever.
I weep not for Old Yankee Stadium.
What chance do buildings have?
–Matt Waters
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*Dylan, “When the Deal Goes Down”
** Dialogue taken from the film “The Thin Red Line”
