"My Team"

MY TEAM

The announcer brags that it’s a beautiful day at Fenway, seventy degrees, sun with scattered clouds, and a perfect time to be at the ballpark. The team wears red, and the crowd is noisy. The fans want a win, which is not anything new, but the Nation needs a lift. The big guy plans to hit at least one homer, and the slim black player named Buddy is aiming to steal a few bases.

I watch as the team scatters and the bullpen pitchers walk across the field. They're a sturdy looking group, young, muscled, and strapping. My friend, Barbara, liked these types. Only seven hundred and eighty men in the world are major league baseball players; you have to be impressed.

The manager talks to his pitching coach, both are former players with paunches, chewing their tobacco. These are men that have grown up in baseball–playing and eventually coaching. During batting practice, the players take turns. Watching the guys hit and scatter the white- round-red-stitched ball all over the field is a sight. My head turns at the crack of the bat. A crowd gathers close to the batter’s box to coo and ahh. We want to get close to our heroes. I run out and buy a sausage, onion and pepper sub that is greasy and delicious. It is my ritual baseball lunch.

Game on. A batter pounds one to third base. The shortstop leaps like a ballet dancer. The hits start coming and the crowd grows louder. We've lost three in a row and need a win. There is an argument about a slide into second. Then the big guy smacks a long ball and two older kids in the stand grab it. The teenagers fight over who gets the ball. They start to tussle and there is some blood. The guards go to the bleachers and remove the teens, who have lost the

ball, which is now in the hands of a small girl with pigtails. Holding it up for the crowd to see, the child smiles and I yell to her, "Keep that sucker!” Her father puts his large hand on the little girl's head and everyone cheers. Her pigtails flip in the air.

By the time I met Barbara, she wasn’t capable of handling the narrow stairs at the ballpark, but we’d still watch the games together; she from her house and me from mine.

"Look at that play," she'd say.

"God, that was close," I'd answer.

"Why don't we get some better pitchers?" she'd moan.

"Damn management won't spend the money."

"If we don't start winning, we'll never make the playoffs."

"My brother will be such a pain if his team wins and mine doesn't," I'd say.

My team is ahead and the crowd roars. The hawkers sell popcorn, Cracker Jacks, and pink cotton candy. The other team comes up, and a Dominican player named Lido with a dark beard hits a double off the wall. The next batter gets on base and our manager calls for a pitching change, a fellow named Snuff Sandusky. He walks out, tall, lanky, with bulging eyes. He once had a no-hitter when he was a rookie, but hasn't been great since. After a few warm-up pitches, he gives up a homerun and a double in his first two pitches. The crowd boos and I wonder what Barbara would say. We finally get the other team out.

Their pitcher throws a fastball and hits our batter. More boos. Believing he was delivering a message, the guys in the dugouts converge on the field. The crowd heckles the

hurler. The manager of the opposing team yells, spits his tobacco out, and swears under his breath.

The other team gets more runs and the crowd grows quiet. Our manager makes another pitching change and we grumble. Then we perk up because the new pitcher gets the other team out. We have our best hitters up and the bases are loaded. It is the bottom of the ninth. Our wiry Japanese left fielder hits a home run. Buddy gets on and steals second base. My little guy is up. I have followed his entire career when he was the most valuable player and won a Gold Glove. He makes the pitcher work and fouls off a bunch of pitches before he lines a single down the middle and Buddy flies home. The big guy comes up and takes two strikes. The count is three balls, and two strikes with two outs. Then he turns his girth into a corkscrew and slams a baseball out of the park, over the Green Monster. We howl, we stomp. Our blood pressures rise and we yell until we are hoarse. Our team wins. The big guy smiles and raises his arms to the fans. He could run for mayor today.

We go home happy, stopping for one more slice of pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni before we fall exhausted into our car. It takes a while to get out of the parking lot, which has been full at fifty dollars a space. Driving home we replay the game inning-by-inning, in increments and minute analysis. The radio announcer on WEEI helps with the details. Crowds line the streets all the way to the Citgo sign. The fans are dressed in red and blue and hats with large "B"s on them. I never get tired of going to a baseball game.

When my friend, Barbara was alive, I used to buy her shirts with her favorite player’s name on it. Once she painted me a baseball picture. Barbara and I never got to go to a real, in the flesh, game together. She never saw the big guy hit an eleventh inning grand slam walk-off,

like the one my grandson and I watched on a hot day in mid-July. She did not experience the swell of the crowd, the high-fives, and the slaps on the backs of the exhilarated fans. But every time I watch a game, I have her on my mind. In my mind we cheer together, comment on how cute a new player is with his curls, and moan when our team goes downhill.