13 Baseball Sundays with Sienna: Game 2

13 Baseball Sundays with Sienna: Game 2

MANY YEARS AGO
I was pissed at my father. He knew it, I knew it, and at the risk of avoid the entire "I knew that he knew" conversation, let me just say there was no doubt between my Mother, Father, brother and myself that someone was in danger of losing his life that day.

Most likely myself since I was around seven years old.

There are several possibilities for the source of such as a tumultuous father-son moment. Girls. Money. Work. Or for a seven year old boy it would be leaving a baseball game during a rain delay that was in the third inning.

ME: DAD! WE'RE NOT LEAVING!

FATHER: We're leaving if I have to pick you up and carry you!

ME: NO!

We were standing under the Fenway Park bleachers, which during a rain delay doubled as a hide away cave with all the amenities that ancient caveman would have thought were terrible. The sun had long ago set along with the time when I was usually put into bed.

This was a special day though. A night game!

FATHER: Wayne!

I sat down at that point. Luckily my pants were already soaked from the rain delay so I didn't give too much thought to the sticky liquid that was suddenly seaping through my courderoys.

My Father turned a color that is best described as Fatherly Rage Red. Crayola could have made a million dollars off the color.

FATHER: The game is going to be called off.

ME: Then we can wait.

By now a small crowd had gathered. Mostly glaring at my father for daring to take his child away from a baseball game. I squeezed my eyes shut to make my father go away. At least that is how I remember the story.

Yes, I was ticked off. This was my birthday present. My first baseball game ever and my father - hater of sports - was ruining it for me!

Since my eyes were closed I felt his hands first. One on each shoulder. My eyes burst open long enough for tears to flood them as he bodily carried me out of Fenway Park.

Oh, where was my Mother during all of this? Shaking her head in disagreement as I was carried off.

FATHER: The ticket will be good for the makeup game.

The next morning I woke up to find out the game HAD been played. I didn't talk to my father for two weeks.

TWENTY SOMETHING YEARS LATER...ON A SATURDAY
Danielle was shaking her head in disagreement against me.

It was a gorgeous sunny day as we pushed Sienna through the cobbled streets of Cobbile Hill on our way to a play date with her daycare friend Tristan. Sienna was keeping a sharp lookout for dogs while she munched on her ever present cheerios. I was rehashing a conversation Danielle and I had been replaying for three days now.

There would be no Sunday baseball game for Sienna and myself.

On Danielle's side: weather reports, that she had been fighting a cold for nine days, and common-sense.

On my side: twenty years of fury at my father and a tiny bit of logic.

My logic was that Sienna would have to get used to inclement weather at some games. What better time than early in her life to teach her? We could layer her in rain gear - she loves the rain I had pointed out.

Danielle was not budging on this. I said a tiny bit of logic.

Danielle changed the subject to which bodega to get water from on Atlantic Avenue. I looked back at my daughter. Our children never know the battles we attempt to fight for them.

What we are willing to sit through.

A FEW MONTHS AGO
"I got enough sitting in the cold in Buffalo that's why."

My father was on the other end of the phone as I picked on him about not wanting to stay at the game. How I would never do that to my child.

I asked him what we was talking about. He never went to a sporting event in his life until my brother and I started sports.

Turns out not to be true.

When we lived in upstate New York the company he was Vice President for had Buffalo Bills season tickets. In the name of corporate synergy and happiness my father would go to the games with my mother.

I was shocked. It was like finding out there WAS an Easter Bunny.

"You sat in the cold?" I asked.

"Unfortunately," he laughed.

"What about us kids?"

"We'd leave you with your mother's friends, go tail gate, and watch the game. All I remember is how cold it was."

I wondered why my father would do such a thing. He laughed again.

"For the love of your mother."

YESTERDAY
"You know my mother will be here the whole day?"

I didn't answer. When the promise of a non-baseball game came through we had invited Grandma Trudy over for the day. It had been two weeks since she had seen Sienna.

It was 11:30 in the morning, Danielle had half an eye on the conversation with me, half an eye on her email as she was waiting for the game to be officially be called. The rain had just started coming down in bucketfuls, pushing toward Noah's Ark level at a rapid pace.

"Game is called," Danielle said, her Iphone bleeping at her, "you glad we didn't go?"

"No," I lied.

Danielle sighed as she tweeted out the game status. She knew she was right. I knew she was right. I'm just glad the game was canceled and would be made up.

Unlike twenty years earlier.

A kid doesn't forget such moments.

ADDENDUM
I should aside here that my father NEVER raised a hand to me. Actually his parenting advice to myself and my brother, If you get mad punch a door; never the child - the door can be replaced, not the child. My sister-in-law is horrified by this advice, my brother and I merely nod since we really did deserve a smack every now and again.

Wayne