Life and Baseball

In October, 2007, I had this to say about the Phillies:

As anyone who knows me well can attest, I'm a huge sports fan, but not a HUGE SPORTS FAN. I don't don jerseys or scream at the TV in sports bars, and my email address isn't 'COWBOYFAN1@hotmail.com. Then there's the Phillies. Try as I might, I just can't shake them. For as long as I can remember, a day hasn't ended between April and October when I haven't had to find the answer to the question, "Did the Phils win tonight?" More often that not, the answer has been no. As I'm sure you're aware, the Phillies recently lost their 10,000th game, the first professional franchise to do so. They've won ONE World Series in their 120-year existence. Then again, all that losing has made it easy to love the Phils. You can't get disappointed when you always expect the worst.

Jayson Stark, baseball writer extraordinaire, had this to say about the Phillies on Wednesday night.

"That's what baseball does. There are going to be people today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year saying, 'I was blank-blank-blank when the Phillies won the World Series.' And that's pretty cool, to have a story of wherever they were when the Phillies won the World Series: 'I was in the parking lot. I was in the stands. I was at a bar. I was having dinner. I was coming back from a trip and I couldn't see it so I listened to it in the car.' And to me, that's kind of cool, because that's what baseball does for people. I just think that's why it's so special."

Agreed.

Wednesday night, I watched on as nearly three decades of futility and frustration culminated in a moment I'll never forget, as the losingest professional sports franchise in history shook off its "chronic disappointment" tag and won the 2008 World Series.

And as Mr. Stark points out, it's the manner in which I celebrated that long-awaited moment, even more than the victory itself, that will always hold a place in my memory.

I've always idolized my older brother Mike. That's just what younger brothers do. And growing up, Mike was about as big a Phillies fan as one could be. He collected their baseball cards, sported player cut-outs on the wall of his bedroom, and fostered an unhealthy obsession with Von Hayes.

So it was only natural that at the age of eight, I would declare my life-long allegiance to the Fightins', and out of that grew a bond that Mike and I have shared ever since. We've experienced a lot since then: some great seasons, some historically awful ones, signs of promise, and of course, the back-breaking 1993 Joe Carter moment that brought the two of us to tears. The one thing we hadn't seen, of course, was a world championship.

Neither Mike nor I are the most gifted "talkers." We both prefer to keep things bottled up, and as our lives have taken various twists and turns over the decades, the "heart to heart" conversations one would expect between siblings have never really materialized. But one thing we've always been more than happy to discuss is our beloved Phils.

During the season, we talk pretty much every day; always about the Phils. This year, I think I made my first "maybe next year" call to Mike a whopping THREE games into the season, but in my defense, the Phils had dropped two straight to bottom-feeding Washington and were trailing 6-1 in the sixth inning. They would bounce back and win that game, and our confidence followed suit.

I often feel sad for Mike. It can't be easy to be the eldest of three brothers, only to watch your two younger siblings and best friends move off and start life elsewhere. Our lives have changed so dramatically since we first became mesmerized by the sound of Harry Kalas' voice. But through it all, the moves, the distance, the marraiges, the children, the medical emergencies, we've always had the Phillies to keep us close when the distractions and demands of life threatened to pull us apart. Some of my fondest memories of this summer were those nights when Mike would stop by, as I struggled with my recovery from brain surgery, and watch a couple innings of the game with me. Sure, there were other things we could, and given the circumstances, probably should have talked about. But it was always the Phils, and we were both just fine with that. It's as if we knew that some day our dedication would be rewarded, and we'd have those shared moments to look back at and cherish.

So it came to be that Wednesday night, with the Phillies poised to win the first world championship I would ever witness, I shared a table in a crowded restaurant in Denver, Colorado with none other than my brother Mike. And together we watched history.

Amazingly, this wasn't some planned encounter with the hopes of sharing the Phillies' coronation. In fact, the string of odd coincidences that had to play out in order for the two of us to make it to that table border on the unbelievable.

My brother's never been to Colorado. He'll probably never come again. The guy avoids cities like Howard Hughes avoided Port-A-Potties. But this year, this month, he had the opportunity to attend a conference in Denver for two days, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. At the time he booked it, the idea that the Phils would be one of the last two teams standing was laughable.

Even as the Phils continued to rack up wins and advance, the odds didn't look good that we'd be able to share that final pitch. First and foremost, the Phils opened the world series as heavy underdogs to the Tampa Bay Rays, a dynamic young team that had just disposed of the defending champion Red Sox. With Game 6 originally scheduled for Wednesday night, Mike and I started the series hopeful that the Phils could find a way to muster at least two wins, so we could watch them play as the series moved back to Tampa.

But then a funny thing happened. The Phils, after splitting the first two games in Tampa, ripped off two straight wins at home. And with their best pitcher on the mound on Monday night with a chance to end 28 years of misery and avoid the return trip to Tampa for Games 6 and 7, Mike and I agreed via telephone that we would happily sacrifice a chance to watch a game together to have the Phillies end this thing in five, and at home. As the Phillies proved in the NLDS and NLCS, there is something lost in clinching a series on the road. The celebration is muted and seemingly held in a vacuum, 25 men rejoicing as 55,000 shuffle out of a quiet stadium.

So as Game 5 began on a cold and wet Monday night in Philly, that was the situation Mike and I faced. Either win tonight, and watch the city of Philadelphia explode in a fit of unfettered glee, or lose, and gain the chance to watch a Game 6 on the road together.

The rest, as you know, is history. Game 5 was suspended in the sixth inning -- the first time a World Series game had ever been suspended -- and suddenly Mike and I were in the midst of a perfect storm. He was on his way to Denver, I was going to make the 3-hour drive from Aspen, and together we would watch the Phillies improbably attempt to close this thing out at home.

As Brad Lidge's final slider of a perfect season cleanly evaded the bat of Eric Hinske, two lifetimes of blind devotion were rewarded. As I reached across the table and hugged my brother Mike, I thought of all the reasons I had to be happy: starting with the simple yet undeniable fact that after what happened six months ago, I was lucky to be alive to witness it.

To see the Phillies players laughing and crying and doing the things newly crowned champions do, and to have intimate knowledge of what an unlikely occurrence it was to have this group of guys earn this moment, was also extremely gratifying.

But as I looked at my older brother, and thought back to all we've shared because of a baseball team of all things, I quickly realized that it wasn't the Phillies winning I was grateful for, it was that this team, ALL of these Phillies teams, have given me something wonderful I could share with him.

And that is what Jayson Stark meant. The Phillies could win it all again next year -- hell, for the next fifty years -- and it will never matter quite like it did on Wednesday night. Because it won't be with Mike.

Whouda Thunk It?

You know, this is turning out to be a pretty great year after all.

/takes swig from flowing Champagne bottle.

//dumps remainder of bottle on wife's head in celebration.

///gets smacked in back of head

The Fightins' will be one of the last two teams standing this year, something I've only witnessed twice prior in my 33 years (I'm not counting 1980, since I was five).

Even better, I'll be able to watch Games 3, 4, and 5 (if there is one) with my folks, who are coming out for a visit next weekend. And if a Game 6 is in the cards, I'll be sharing that one with my brother Mike -- the very reason I'm a Phils fan in the first place -- when he comes out to Denver in 10 days for a conference.

By not rooting for the Phillies, and indirectly my happiness, you are implicitly supporting brain aneurysms. That makes you an awful, awful human. Go Phils!

What Happiness Looks Like

And with that swing, 3-1 Phillies.

Reality Check

So I had this dream the other night. Like most of my dreams since the surgery, it was incredibly detailed, life-like, and completely unsettling. Unlike the other dreams, however, I don't think I need a PHD in psychology to interpret this one.

Back to my dream. I had entered a race comprised of the bike and run portions of a half-Ironman: 56 miles on the bike followed by a half-marathon. Just as in real life, I was only several months from my aneurysm clipping, and fully aware that I wasn't ready for this level of physical exertion.

So I came up with a plan: I would ride and run very, very slowly, even if it meant finishing dead last, as a way to keep from harming myself.

The bike course was made up of 5 repeats of a 5-mile out-and-back (I know the math doesn't work, but it was a dream, after all!) As the race started, I stuck to my plan, and let everyone fly by as I slowly plodded towards the first turn around. Making matters worse, the "out" section of the course was steep; absurdly steep in that unrealistic yet realistic manner that dreams allow.

As I stood out of the saddle and applied as much pressure to the pedals as I could, I became acutely aware that I had bit off way more than I could chew, and was in very real danger of hurting or even killing myself if I kept up this level of intensity so soon after my surgery.

But I kept pedaling, because in my mind, the most important thing wasn't how I raced, but that I finished. Because it was only at the finish, at least in my dream, that the rest of the racers and spectators would learn that I was only five months removed from aneurysm surgery. I became more exhausted and certain I was doing irreparable harm to myself, yet I kept going and going simply because I wanted to make it to the end for the satisfaction of being recognized as having "overcome" the aneurysm. Once I finished, everyone in attendance would know it was possible to ride 56 miles and run a half-marathon five months after brain surgery.

And this was the only thought repeating in my brain as I pedaled and pedaled and pedaled. When I had finished the first 10 miles of the ride, I found I had gone so slowly that other racers were already out on the run portion. But it didn't matter: I had to keep going no matter how long it took, to prove to everyone -- to prove to myself -- that it could be done.

When I woke, I was covered in sweat and breathing heavily, a position I have found myself in far too often in the middle of the night recently.

Why I am I writing this? Because a few months ago, I wrote the following:

To be able to process hearing a surgeon tell us three weeks ago that everything is fine and I can return to a normal life, after everything we've been through, takes an element of faith. Faith that this was the end of something, rather than the beginning. And in my mind, in order to procure that faith, I need to look forward rather than back. I need to accept this aneurysm for what it was: a medical condition that, while terrifying and potentially life-threatening, has been properly treated. Only then can I stop defining myself by what I've been through, and start living again like I did four months ago: excited for every day to come rather than apprehensive of what may go wrong.

I'd like to believe that at the time, I genuinely believed that this was how I'd approach my recovery. But four months later, nothing could be farther from the truth.

This has been, to say the least, an emotional ass-kicking. There's not a day that goes by in which I'm not paralyzed by fear that this will all happen to me again. As illogical and nonsensical as it is, every little pain in my head makes me want to run and have a test done to prove there's nothing there.

Even worse, I've gotten into a vicious battle with myself. In an effort to prove to myself that life will return to normal, that I can be just as I was prior to May 9th, I've really pushed the recovery. I've run almost every other day since the 8-week mark, I've been swimming since July, and I recently tried to re-introduce weight lifting.

Each workout is met with fear that I'm doing too much, that I should be taking it easy until at least the six month mark, but each day I go out there and do it. Because I feel I have to. I have to prove to myself that I will do these things again, and the simplest way to do that is go out there, do it, and see what happens.

And that is what led me to run a 5K last Saturday. And to lift weights harder on Sunday. And, of course, to the inevitable bad headache on Sunday night, the first real "headache" I've had since the surgery, and one that led me into a week-long emotional tailspin of convincing myself I had done significant damage.

My dream followed on Tuesday night, and I can't help but think my subconscious was doing everything in its power to send me a message. Maybe it's time to back off, and stop feeling like I have something to prove. Perhaps taking that pressure off will make this time easier.

Big Happenings from Coast to Coast

There's a-doings a-transpiring these days.

Let's start in New Jersey, where a hearty congratulations is in order for two of our favorite people. Dean Gray, simply the best guy I know, and his lovely wife Erica (who also doubles as my most consistent and appreciated blog commenter) welcomed to the world their second little girl, Naomi June.

Naomi came in at a robust 8 lbs 10 ounces, and while that's quite impressive, it's not quite big enough to fend off the inevitable rough-housing to come from big sister Nadia over the coming years.

When Dean originally texted me the information, he introduced his daughter as "Nadia June" which prompted me to ask when Dean had turned into George Foreman and started naming all of his kids the same thing. Turns out it was a typo, the result of a fried brain from dealing with the numerous responsibilities of an impending dad. Fatherhood isn't easy you know...unlike motherhood.

Here in Aspen this week has basically consisted of watching my beloved Phillies in the postseason, broken up by periods where I nervously wait to watch my beloved Phillies in the postseason. Tough to concentrate on much else, particularly when you consider the Fightins' haven't won a playoff game since I was eighteen.

At the time, I was a freshman riding the bench for the Trenton State Men's Soccer Team, feigning interest in the action on the field as I waited breathlessly for the PA announcer to give the update on the NLCS and World Series.

Last year, I threw up a celebratory post when the Phils clinched the division on the final day of the regular season, but since that was promptly followed by a three-game bludgeoning at the hands of the buzzsaw that was the 2007 Colorado Rockies, I figured I'd wait a bit this year to avoid any potential jinxing. Now that I think about it, maybe I'll just ignore what happened today and move on with this post.

Saturday morning was a big day on the aneurysm front. I decided it was time to test myself a bit, more mentally than physically, and race in a local 5K. When I arrived at the start, I was surpised to learn that instead of a flat road race, this was a cross-country style event with over 350 feet of climbing. Nonetheless, I had a great time getting out there and running again, simultaneously completing the slowest yet most rewarding 5K of my life.

Here's local legend Terry Schaefer in the finishing chute, completing his second straight championship in the 60-65 year old age group of the Aspen Race Series, a three-stage event that covers the entire summer.

Terry was kind enough to return the favor and shoot a pic of a clearly distracted me.

After the race, I wanted to take a minute and send a message back to everyone that made it possible for me to get back to where I am today. I have a full appreciation for how fortunate I am; how easily things could have ended for me last spring, or how many things could have gone wrong with the surgery, leaving the idea of even running a 5K an impossibility.

So to my wife Lauren, my loving family, and all my friends and co-workers that sent me kind words either before the surgery or during the recovery, this is for you. Oh, and let's not forget my wonderful surgeon and the hopsital staff at Thomas Jefferson who performed the clipping, because let's face it...my wife and friends and family were great and all, but they have neither the skill nor the steady hand to pull off a procedure like that.

In case you can't read it, it says THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!