Two years after the beginning - sayeth the algorithm.

   Last week I shared a rather cryptic "Two years ago today" memory on Facebook.    It was a Facebook app which prompts you from time to time.  It appears to be triggered by Facebook Algorithms, which are somewhat of a mystery to me, but basically they seem to read your "happy" memories and share them again with you at a later date.
 
    April 22nd, 2015:  Answering a question about Phil Lesh's bass that my neighbor Andy posted and there it was: "Facebook Memory - two years ago today."  Maari in the hospital bed, practicing her violin.  She was hooked up to the chemo machine and that was to be her final chemo as she would be declared cancer-free.  Seeing the picture again - thanks Facebook - definitely affected me.

   Not offering any context, it probably appeared I was grieving again to most of my friends.  While I was certainly in my dark place thanks to my Facebook memory, I was not going to stay there for long.

   Two years ago on April 22nd, 2013, I stayed at the hospital all night with Maari.  Two years later on April 22nd, 2015 it was a 12-hour day for this choir director, taking two Curtis choirs to the league large group contest and staying most of the day.

    Staring at the computer picture of Maari playing violin in the hospital bed, I recalled what happened that night in the children's cancer wing.  As I often did, I took a walk around the wing while Maari watched TV.

    On that night, I saw the Face of God.

    It had been a long time since I thought about that memory.

   When I left the wing and re-entered, a small child-patient looked up at me from behind the door.  Most adults aren't around many child cancer patients going though chemo, and for most, certain traits are hard to identify.  Gender, age, ethnicity, hair color - the chemo alters the outward appearance for most of these kids.  The chemo-child often appears to be genderless, his or her hair robbed by the chemo, their eyes seem bigger as there are no eye-brows.

    But I had been around so many of these children, I knew this child was an African-American boy about 10 years old.  Maari was often mistaken for a boy by those who didn't know - most little girls with cancer are.  The boy stared up at me when I opened the door.

    I looked into his eyes, thinking to myself this might be the last time I see a child cancer patient.  This was to be Maari's Final Night of Chemo, and I wondered what would happen to this little boy.  Would he be there a few more days, weeks, or months?  Would his cancer be cured?  I just kept thinking about how lucky we were as a family to be ending our cancer journey and getting our little girl back.

    As he looked back at me, it hit me - his face was the Face of God.  What was I supposed to do?  It was a sign, and I had no idea what it meant.  I smiled at him,  and he continued to watch me as I walked back to Maari's room.

   Fast forward two years later to last week.  I was conducting the high school girls' choir at contest, and we were performing Z. Randall Stoope's "The Poet Sings."  Usually I conduct this piece from the piano, but Margie had come in to play so I was able to face the group and conduct while they sang.

    There they stood - these young women singing beautifully, and one of my Healing moments occurred.  Behind them up above was a stain-glassed portrait of Jesus kneeling.  I noticed it at the same time the girls sang Stoope's opening text:

    "She's somewhere in the sunlight strong.
      Her tears are in the falling rain,
     She calls me in the wind's soft song,
     And with the flowers she comes again.

     The loneliness and misery
     Are silenced by a melody.
     She's somewhere and I hear her sing,
     Her words in timeless memory:

    Stay the course,
    Light a star,
    Change the world wher'er you are."

 And in a musical moment - the kind only music can do - I was transported to Maari's hospital room when she took her last breaths on August 31st, 2013.   I remember when she heaved and stopped breathing.

    I kissed her cheek, and said softly: "Daddy Loves you."

    A tear ran down her cheek, and I quickly grabbed a tissue and wiped it from her face, putting the tissue in my pocket.  Moments later she was gone.

    When I watched her pass, I remembered the beam of sunlight that came through the
 hospital room window.  It washed her face with light.

   The day after contest, I shared with the girls their singing meant so much more than they realized.  I saw Maari during the Stroope piece.

    She was standing in the sunlight.

    And she was fine.

    That night, Maari appeared on the computer screen in her hospital bed playing the violin.

   Two years ago.

   Two years ago I saw the Face of God.

   And I still don't know what it means.

   

Paging John Baker

Baseball is the link.   The link to my childhood, my father, my own children - probably the link to my own final days on earth.

I'll be like that that astronaut at the end of 2001 A Space Odyssey.  He's sitting at a table in solitude, an elderly man eating his meal wearing a nice bathrobe.  Except I'll be at a ballpark eating peanuts.

And I won't be wearing a bathrobe - I'll be wearing a Cubs uniform. 

Sitting at the baseball park connects my life-dots better than Claude Monet ever could on canvas.  When that inherent baseball mysticism does appear at a game it reconciles my past, present and future.  I'm sitting at the altar of one great green grass temple.

The green, green grass of home.  

My parents took my sister and I to our first baseball at Cheney Stadium growing up, and my Dad would often take me to see Gene Lobe's Softball team play at Bremerton's Roosevelt Field.  I remember my Dad eating peanuts from a bag at Cheney, or giving me money for a Coke at Roosevelt Field where I sat on the green wooden bleachers and watched the game.

But my Dad was there.  Now Roosevelt Field and my Dad are both gone. 

     

When I played Little League, I don't think I even swung the bat until my second year.  I figured a walk had less risk involved.  I didn't get my first hit until my third year.  In my fourth year, my team the The Tigers finally won a game.  We gradually got better that last year and finished with a semi-winning record. 

And my Dad was there at every game.  He stood off to the side of the chain link fence that separated the infield from the bleachers.  Wearing his grey windbreaker and a fedora hat, he would stand eating a bag of peanuts - watching the entire game.   He saw everything during those painful public executions my team suffered.

A few games into those early seasons, I'm sure the opposing team's parents must have begun to channel the ancient Romans.

Their little lions kept tearing our team apart in that little coliseum.

But my Dad was there for all of those games.
  

My father died when I was 14, a couple of years after my Little League Baseball career had shifted to pavement sports like skateboarding and street basketball.  When my Mom broke the news to me that my father had suffered a heart attack one morning and passed away, I sat on the kitchen stool and said slowly: 

"He was at every game."

Not wanting to be any different from my classmates, I didn't talk about my single-parent upbringing or mention my father very often.  My Mom did an admirable job of raising my sister and I through high school, and she made sure we had every educational opportunity available to us.

During my freshman year at Washington State University, I played three intramural sports - football, basketball and softball.  At one of the softball games that spring, I dropped a pop-fly late that allowed the other team to score and win the game.   *This was also my first experience with the verb Coug.   As in: "Our team Coug'ed the game."  

That was also the moment I realized my father was gone.   When the game was over, I probably walked two miles and sat in a Pullman dairy field and cried.  I don't think I cried the day he died, but my softball error in the field was grief realized some six years later.  My roommate went out looking for me that night, and when I returned to our room a few hours later he was there.  It was well after midnight, and he calmly reassured me my error was no big deal and my teammates still cared about me. 

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When my daughter was little, I would try to take on her little excursions, just the two of us.  The early "Dates with Daddy" were swimming at the Y or going out for ice cream.     This was for my benefit too, but I also wanted her to know from a young age how a male was supposed to treat her when she was on a date.  My thinking was that when she was old enough to date, she would realize a boy who didn't treat her like her father did on a date was not worth her time.

Maari was seven when I took her to her first baseball game in 2010.  Felix Hernandez was pitching for the Mariners, and per usual he pitched brilliantly. He left in the 8th inning with 2-1 lead, and like so many of his starts the Mariners gave him little or no run support and the bullpen collapsed.  And this game was typical for Felix - the Mariners lost the game for him in the 9th.

But none of that box score mattered.   Leaving the house for the game, Maari held my hand walking to the car with the other hand carrying her purse.   Carrying her purse made her feel important, like a grown-up. She stayed close to me throughout the game, and loved going to the upper deck to see the sunset and eat Dippin' Dots.  

I don't think I tried to explain to her what a "bullpen collapse" was that night.  Maari wouldn't have cared.   Unless I told her the bullpen was a place where stuffed teddy bears lived - I could have told her that.   That would have piqued her baseball interest.  

Baseball really isn't about the game on the field.  

But it can transfix a life like no other sport. 

I won't get to experience anymore baseball games with Maari.  Cancer took her from me, no need to check the box score.   She walked on earth's green grass for ten years. Now she's playing in green grass greater than we can ever experience in this ballpark called Earth. 

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This summer I wanted to take my son on a trip.   We've done camping trips, Disneyland trips, road trips to Leavenworth, the ocean, Port Townsend and several trips as a family.

But after his last two summers of living in a house of hell - Cancer can do that to your house - I wanted him to experience a road trip with Dad.  And I wanted to experience a road trip with my son. 

Enter baseball.   The transcendental, ethereal game we call baseball.   

I've taken high school choirs to San Francisco several times and Chicago once.  Checking the MLB schedule early, I noted the Giants and Cubs both had home stands which ended the month of July.  Mapping an itinerary for San Francisco was easy.   Burn some air miles Saturday afternoon, we'd be at the Giants-Dodgers game that evening.  

San Francisco began their series with a one and a half game lead over the Dodgers and leading their division.   But the Dodgers would sweep the series and leave town on Sunday with a one and a half division lead of their own.

AT&T Park is a beautiful stadium, set right on the bay.  We witnessed Dodger pitcher Clayton Kershaw throw a complete game in a Dodgers' 5-0 shutout.  Kershaw owned the Giants, allowing only two hits.   It was a clinic, and the most entertaining part was watching the visiting Dodgers fans get louder and louder throughout the game.  Dodger fans dotted half the crowd with their blue shirts and caps - they even seemed to catch all the foul balls. 

As games go, it was rather routine.   Kershaw pitched like Felix.  And he didn't need a bullpen. 

 

     

The next day I showed Aidan my favorite places in The City By The Bay - Lombard street, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Presidio, a drive-through of Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park, a walk through Chinatown and Ghiradelli Square.  We ate at my favorite restaurant, Cathay House in Chinatown. I had been to Cathay House several times with the high school choirs, and I highly recommend it.

Then we embarked on what we traveling-choir-directors refer to as "the straight shot."  That's traveling all night and hope you catch some sleep in route.  We took a red-eye back to Sea-Tac then transferred to O'Hare.  At 6:00 a.m. Monday we were riding the Blue Line from O'Hare to Chicago with 100% sleep deprivation.    

The train left O'Hare with about a dozen travelers.  By the time it arrived downtown in The Loop it was packed with morning rush hour commuters.   

After dropping our bags at the hotel, we stumbled around Grant Park, State Street and finished the day at the Field Museum where Aidan could name nearly all the dinosaur skeletons. 

The next day we went to the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower.  It used to be The Sears Tower back when Sears was hip.  Now they have these really cool Sky Ledges - glass boxes that protrude from the building over the street and buildings that sit WAY below you.  

And then the coup de grace - we boarded the Red Line Train for Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs.  Built in 1914, Wrigley is celebrating its 100th season this year.  I love Chicago.  Its a city that always keeps a sense of humor and doesn't take itself too seriously.

We walked around the park before the game and Aidan spotted a Cubs T-Shirt that read: 

What did Jesus say to The Cubbies? 

Don't do anything until I get back. 

Wrigley Field may be the most mystical of all the baseball parks in America.   And we were about to experience history when the Cubs hosted The Colorado Rockies that night. 

We just didn't know it yet. 

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Boys watching Cubs game from a tree, 1930-something.

Cubs legendary announcer Harry Caray, the Dave Niehaus of Chicago. 

Celebrating a World Series win in 1945.   *I think that's what this is anyway.  I believe they lost the series but won three games before losing Game 7 and beginning the era of "The Curse."  

Aidan meets an Old English Bulldog in Wrigleyville.

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We had great seats.   I tried to get tickets close to the bullpen wall along the third base line.  The wall separating the field from the stands is where Al Capone would take his son and get player autographs in the early 1930's.  We sat in Row 7, very close to where Big Al used to sit with his son. 

ESPN's Mike and Mike threw out the first pitch.  Cubs starting pitcher Jorge De La Rosa labored through the first six innings and threw 118 pitches.  Mike and Mike didn't take long, but De La Rosa took almost three hours.  The Rockies quickly pounced on him, scoring three runs in the first.

But those were the last runs The Rockies would score.  The Cubs scored one in the bottom of the first, then tied it in the bottom of the fourth with Emilio Bonifacio's two-run home run. 

During the first inning a few raindrops fell.  They were big drops, but as a seasoned rain-veteran from the Northwest I couldn't believe dozens of Cub fans were running for cover.  Most came back when the downpour-that-only-an-ant-could-appreciate ceased 10 minutes later, but a few actually left the park. 

The seventh-inning stretch didn't start until almost 10:30, and the stands were still mostly full.  Quite a few left after Take Me Out To The Ballgame, but most left after the next rain.   I mean, it was kind of like rain.   Those of us from the 253 would call it a windy mist.   But this precipitation was a little heavier than the first-inning drizzle and came with a lot more wind.  I think it started in the ninth inning. 

Now fans were really leaving.  Or putting on ponchos.  Again - I could see drops falling through the lights.  But it didn't seem like rain.   It lasted for 10-15 minutes, the game didn't stop and Aidan didn't want to leave or wait in the concourse.    The *precipitation* stopped and we were dry by the tenth inning. 

But the exodus allowed us to move to the front row right behind the bullpen.  

The Cubs bullpen wasn't going to collapse on this night.  Far from it.  When De La Rosa left in the 6th, the Cubs had seven pitchers available in the bullpen.  

And they would use every one of them. 

After nine innings, it was still tied at three.   Wrigley Field was about to become theater.   A theater of the bizarre and beautiful.

Both teams had a chance to win in the 10th.   With runners on 2nd and 3rd,  the Rockies attempted a suicide squeeze.  Justin Morneau took off full speed from third for home,  Now in a squeeze, all the batter has to is make contact, any bunt should work.  But the batter missed the ball, and Morneau was a sitting duck.  He began backpedaling to third, and Cubs catcher Wellington Castillo tagged him out easily.

Baseball's karma pendulum would swing back at Castillo though.  At the bottom of the 10th with Starlin Castro on second base, Castillo hit a sharp arcing ball to deep centerfield.  It looked like it was going to hit the wall, and Castro could tag and take off with the winning run.   

Rockies centerfielder Charlie Blackmon accelerated toward the ball and at the last second dove for a perfect catch.  Even the Cubs fans applauded.  

Now it was approaching midnight.   Cubs bullpen coach Lester Strode had been answering the bullpen phone regularly since the sixth and warming up relievers - but he was running out of them.   This was when Cubs backup catcher John Baker sat down in front of us and talked quickly to Strode and the other bullpen pitchers sitting near him.

The two relievers directly in front of Aidan and I weren't available to pitch and spoke only in Spanish.   Strode joked a lot  with one of them, the one he called Frankie.  I bet Al Capone talked to someone named Frankie back in the day too.  

I liked Strode.  It was well after midnight, and there were lots of empty seats.  But he would patiently stare down a young fan and and point at them between innings.  When he had the child's attention, he tossed a souvenir ball.   Sometimes he tossed it 50 or 60 feet, but each kid always seem to catch the ball and would jump up and down with excitement. 

Baker returned to the dugout.  Now the Cubs were using their last reliever.  It was the 14th inning and the Rockies were using their last one too.   

The 14th inning - the PA announcer than did something I'd never seen.  He led the crowd remaining in a SECOND rendition of Take Me Out To The Ball Game.    The crowd sang boisterously and seemed to be increasing in energy.  

The fans knew they were running out of pitchers in the bullpen now. 

Baker came back to the bullpen.  This time he was wearing his cap and had removed his catcher kneepads.  He began to warm up on the bullpen mound.  A Cubs fans in left field yelled: NO! NOT BAKER!

Cubs fans are hilarious.  25 of them or so were still chasing every foul ball at 1:00 a.m.  A taunt leader would yell a Rockies players name and the others would respond in chorus.  

Leader-in-solo-voice: PAGING COREY DICKERSON (The Rockies left fielder - he was very close to the bleachers)

Bleacher-fans-in-unison-chorus-voice: YOU SUCK!

They also did this whenever a Rockie came to bat.

Leader:  HEY JUSTIN MORNEAU!

Bleacher choir: YOU SUCK! 

A little girl behind us shouted the familiar sports chant in her tiny voice: LET'S GO CUBBIES! 

Then a hundred fans near her clapped the response: *Long-long-short-short-short*

Once she realized she was in control of the hand clapping ensemble, the little girl began speeding up and the clap chorus stayed right with her laughing every time. 

Catcher John Baker had never pitched in the majors.  And because the trading deadline was two days away, the Cubs had even fewer pitchers available.  But Baker had pitched one game in college some thirteen years earlier. 

Strode turned to Frankie and said: "In five more minutes, we're going to break the record for the longest game at Wrigley.  In HISTORY! You're going to be in the history books Frankie.  How about that?  You're History!"

Frankie knodded.  He and the reliever next to him began quietly conversing in Spanish. 

It was 1:30 a.m. 

Both teams had used their entire bullpen now.  The game was officially a record for "Longest Cubs Game Ever."   The Rockies were going to use another starting pitcher, Tyler Matzek for their half of the 16th inning. 

But the Cubs were sending John Baker to the mound to start the 16th.  The few hundred fans left were chanting BAKER! BAKER! BAKER!  

Baker got the first batter to pop out to first base.  Out Number One.  Then he walked the next batter.   Then - and this can only happen in baseball - Baker threw the pitch.  The batter Christhian Adames hit it.  Right to second base.  Double play.  Outs Two and Three. Baker was out of the inning.   

Now Baker was the first batter for the Cubs.  He drew a walk and the crowd was buzzing.  Bonifacio was up next and hit a sacrifice fly to move Baker to second.  Arizmendy Alcantara was the next batter - hit by pitch.  Now Baker was on second, Alcantara on first.   Then Anthony Rizzo hit a single to left and the bases were loaded with one out. 

Castro was at bat.  He drove a deep fly ball to right field.  

Baker tagged third base.

He ran toward home.   Baker's not very fast, but he was fast enough.  

Baker scored the winning run.  Cubs win! Cubs win!

The Final score was 4-3 Cubs.  It was almost 2:00 in the morning.  

John Baker was the winning pitcher.  And he scored the winning run.  

Aidan and I boarded the Red Line with about 200 other Cub fans at two in the morning.  It was surreal.  The only people on the train were Cubs fans.

They were all at the game that I will never forget.

And I was there with my son.  And my daughter's bear was on the heart logo of every Cub player.  And I had a bag of peanuts. 

Thank you baseball.  

And Thank you to the Chicago Cubs. 

You are that link.