For the Love of the Game

I had worked at Rocco’s for almost four years. And had been the bartender for the last two when three of my co-workers and I went in together on a tiny three-bedroom rent house off Van Nuys Boulevard. Jennie and I chipped in a little extra so we could have a room to ourselves, leaving Nicholas and Samuel to share the third bedroom. Jennie, Nicholas and I weren’t natural baseball fans. But Samuel certainly was, and driven by his love of the game, over time, we had all become certifiable Dodger fans.

Tickets were expensive, even for the outfield bleachers, so we didn’t go often. But when we did go, we always sat in the cheap seat behind right field. I had this massive crush on Andre Ethier. He was the Dodgers’ star outfielder, and I always hoped to get a seat as close to where he was playing as possible. When the Dodgers were in the field, I loved sitting behind Andre so that I could gaze at his athletic form, and more specifically, his marvelous ass as he waited for the next hit.

On this particularly beautiful spring afternoon, it was the bottom of the seventh, and I had a beer in my hand. Suddenly, I realized Andre was at bat and moved to the edge of my seat. The first pitch was a strike, the second was a ball, and I slipped back into my seat. Then, there was that magic crack of the bat. That mythical sound that every baseball player and fan waits for the entire game to hear. I knew it was a home run and just felt it was coming our way.

Looking up, I realized the ball was coming straight toward me. I jumped to my feet, dropping my beer, and reached for the sky, hoping to catch it. It would have been the most incredible event of my life if I had. As the ball drifted down on a perfect azimuth to my outstretched hands, I leaned back further and further. And just as the ball should have landed in my hands, I fell backward into the guy behind me. I was shocked that I had fallen backward and had to be caught by a stranger sitting in the row behind us, but that wasn’t the real tragedy. What really devastated me was that my hands were empty. I had not caught the ball.

Looking up as I leaned backward over my stadium seat, there were the eyes of the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life. I was absolutely speechless. He was holding me around my chest with one arm and holding my ball high in the air with his other. We both just stared at each other in a moment of genuine bewilderment. Gently, he pushed me back up to a standing position, and as I slowly turned around to face him, he lowered his hand and held the ball out to me. Smiling, he said, “I think this is yours.”

I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there like a mannequin, with my mouth wide open and my eyes fixated on his. Jennie, my roommate, elbowed me and said quietly, “Take it, you moron.”

I meekly accepted the ball from his hand, and as soon as I did, the entire stadium erupted in cheers and raucous applause. I thought they were cheering Andre’s home run, but as I turned and held the ball high over my head, I realized there was more to it. I was even further stunned when I realized the entire event was being broadcast on the stadium’s Jumbotron. They were cheering for me and my gallant knight, who had actually caught the ball. As well as the clumsy goof of a girl who couldn’t hold on to her own beer, much less a high fly heading straight for her. Little did I know that it was also being broadcast on live TV, and we were suddenly the two most widely viewed star-struck lovers in recorded sports history.

“Thank him,” Jennie urged me.

“Thank you,” I finally managed to say.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

His look of concern that I might have been injured turned to one of relief, and he said, “You spilled your beer. Can I get you another?”

Jennie, who was still standing beside me, jabbed me with her elbow again, “Go, go …”

I bent over to pick up my empty cup, and as I stood back up, the stadium again erupted into cheers and taunts. The camera was still on us, and I was utterly embarrassed that thousands of Dodger fans had watched me make a total ass of myself. I blushed about a dozen shades of crimson. But my savior and new best friend, from over the row of seats, grabbed my hand and walked me to the closest aisle. As we trudged up the steps to the nearest exit, he said, “Hi, my name is Sean.”

I was still breathless over the entire encounter, but after taking a deep breath, I did manage to say, “I’m Lauren.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Lauren. You and your friends seem to be big Dodger fans.”

As we had made it to the mezzanine and headed for the nearest concession stand, I said, “Oh, they’re not friends. They’re my roommates.”

“Oh,” he said, almost laughing. “You’re not friends with your roommates?”

“Oh no,” I stuttered. “I mean, yes, we’re friends. But they’re just my roommates.”

Now, he really was laughing. But what I was trying to say was that I wasn’t on a date – I had no romantic connection to any of them. And I think he understood that, but he was having a good time listening to me making a fool of myself. Standing in line at the beer booth, he stopped giggling and asked, “Lauren, since you’re not with friends, may I have your number?”

Like a child’s toy, I just rattled it off.

He hadn’t even taken his phone from his pocket yet.  Yet, somehow, he had managed to remember my gibberish response, and once he had his phone open, he successfully typed it in. Within seconds, my phone was ringing. “That’s me – Sean. Be sure to save the number so you’ll know it’s me when I call you tonight.”

I quickly saved his number in my contacts and added the name – ‘Sean-dodger stadium.’

Once we had fresh beers in hand, we walked back to our seats. I was surprised to see that Jennie had moved up to Sean’s seat and motioned for him to take her old one. I was still in shock, but I graciously accepted her offer. With one hand on my new beer and one hand tightly holding Sean’s, we watched the rest of the game together. And as the Dodgers won, I think we both considered it a victory for all concerned.

True to his word, Sean called that night, and just like teenagers, as I lay in bed, dreaming of his beautiful face, we chatted for over an hour. He told me that he was a driver for UPS. And that it was a union job, one that he loved and hoped to remain with UPS for years to come. I also discovered that he had been at the game with a friend. And that Jennie and his friend had already hit it off. I was so distracted by my meeting with Sean that I hadn’t even noticed what had happened to Jennie.

We went out together the next night and again almost every night that I wasn’t working at the bar. Six weeks later, by the end of June, I had moved out of the renthouse I had shared with co-workers for six years and in with Sean. Within a year and a half, as young lovers do, we decided to start a family. I discontinued my birth control in December, and in less than two months, we were expecting. Sean and I were married on May 13^th in an outdoor ceremony on the second anniversary of that fateful day at Dodger Stadium.

Do I have my roommates to thank for putting Sean and me together? Or Andre Ethier? Or was it that I just couldn’t hold on to my beer? I will never know what fate smiled on me that day in May. All I know is that my life is now complete, all for the love of the game.