An All-Star Perfect Day
For Father’s Day this year I took Timothy to a Rockies game at Coors Field. He had been to baseball games before but did not seem to remember them. Being five years old he is just starting to form permanent memories and is really excited about baseball, so I want to make some great foundational memories with him as often as possible and going to a game fit the bill nicely.
The Major League Baseball All-Star game is at Coors Field this year for the first time since 1998 and the excitement in the stadium three weeks out is palpable. There are 30 Major League teams, so even though it has been 23 years, if every team gets an equal turn at hosting this event the Rockies are still a few years early for their turn.
We had a fantastic day at the park and Timothy being Timothy said he wanted to go back to Coors Field and attend the All-Star Game. I immediately started to explain to him the myriad of reasons why we would be watching the game on our couch that night and he seemed to accept that answer, but he just did not understand.
My birthday is July 4. Back in the summer after I graduated high school, the only thing I wanted for my birthday was to take my dad to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. I was working, so I saved up my money and splurged on some excellent tickets. I do not remember if they won or lost, or even who they were playing, but I do remember spending the day at the ballpark with my dad. I carry that memory with me today and will for the rest of my life. It was the perfect day.
Field of Dreams sums up how I felt when Timothy asked to go to the All-Star Game. “You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening,” Burt Lancaster’s Archie Graham says in the movie. “Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day.”
Baseball more than any other sport is steeped in history. The love of the game is passed down from one generation to the next and even those of us who will never play professionally become a part of that history. I kept thinking about the All-Star Game and how I have always wanted to go to a major sporting event. When will I ever have the chance to do something like this again so close to home, when my son is engaged with baseball so completely? On a whim I checked the Rockies web site to see if by chance any tickets were left for the All-Star Game. I searched the site waiting for the inevitable bad news. I knew when I saw that they were unavailable I would be able to move on and accept that this moment was not *the* moment.
To my surprise there were some tickets left! Only a couple dozen in the whole stadium, and not choice seats, but they were there for the taking. I just needed to decide that this was the day. Or instead would I take the chance that there would be another opportunity to make a once in a lifetime memory when Timothy was 28? The window to purchase the remaining tickets was closing with each passing second.
If I have learned anything over the last year or so it is that no one is promised anything, least of all time, and to appreciate the memories I have collected over the years. Physical things are great, but they can only do so much. Memories are magic, they allow us to visit the past whenever we choose, to travel back to a time and place and find meaning we never knew was there when it was happening.
On July 13, 2021, Timothy and I will be in Section 160, Row 13 watching the best players in the world have fun playing baseball. He is unlikely to last the whole game, and he will probably miss school the next day, but that matters as much as who won that game at Fenway back on my birthday. No matter what happens it will be the perfect day.