Fallen and he can't stand up

My grandfather Pop-Pop fell today and he could not stand up.

I speed-walked upstairs to help. Pop-Pop was inadvertently planking in his closet, breathing heavily after attempts to pull himself to his feet. He and my grandmother Kicki have lived in a second-floor apartment at my house for the last decade, and lately Pop-Pop has regressed. Cancer has invaded his face. A tumor the size of a softball eats at his left jaw. Most days, he cannot close or blink his left eye. It remains open instead, the color of a stop sign. His legs, once muscular, resemble toothpicks. His lifestyle, once self-sufficient, now relies on everyone else. He cannot read, his favorite hobby, without a powerful magnifying glass. He cannot walk to the car without someone to lean on. He cannot urinate without someone to help him balance.

I carried Pop-Pop to his feet and led him to his bed. He sat on the edge and held me in his hands.

“Thank you,” he said, panting from all the exertion it took to hold me while I lifted him. “What’s your name again?”

Then he cried and hugged me tighter than he ever has.

Eighteen years ago today, Reggie Lewis was 27 years old when he collapsed at Brandeis University and passed away two and a half hours later at Boston’s New England Baptist Hospital. He died doing what he presumably loved to do. He did not have any tumors growing from his face. He did not need someone to help him piss or someone to be his crutch whenever he walked to the car. He never forgot the names of his loved ones or looked into the mirror to see an eye the color of a Chicago Bulls away jersey staring right back at him.

Lewis missed all the good stuff.

Pop-Pop flew dozens of missions in World War II. He played in a golf league every Thursday night. He sold used cars in Springfield, MA, coached his only son’s CYO basketball team to a 44-1 record one season, read more books than any other person I have met, and once scored an own goal to lose a playoff game for his high school hockey team.

When my mom returned home after a night of partying, Pop-Pop would be sleeping, but his arm would hang over the edge of the couch to make her stop and say goodnight. No sneaking into his house.

When my uncle Kelly was young, he once slept over a friend’s house but told Pop-Pop he was attending a MacDuffie School dance. The next day, Pop-Pop picked Kelly up and asked how the dance had been.

“It was fun,” Kelly responded. But Pop-Pop knew.

“There was no dance,” he said. He had sold a car to MacDuffie’s headmaster earlier that day. When Pop-Pop asked, the headmaster knew nothing about his school’s alleged dance. No lying to Pop-Pop, either.

Now, my aunts and uncles take shifts to take care of Pop-Pop. They make him meals. They help change his clothes. They drive him to radiation. They chat with him, or, when he doesn’t feel well enough to chat, they sit and keep him company. Pop-Pop hasn’t been alone since the day he married Kicki.

“It’s Jay,” I told Pop-Pop.

He looked at me once more and said, ”I love you, Jay.”

I love you too, Pop-Pop. I love you too.

My pitcher Vinny

I woke up yesterday morning to discover my car's brand new flat tire. I don't know how the flat developed, because I had driven the car the night before with no problems. What I do know is that I couldn't drive, AAA towed my car to the nearest repair shop (which will presumably cost me hundreds of dollars---or, in other words, a month's worth of blogging), and then I got called to cover a baseball game on a night I was supposed to have off. Not a glorious baseball game, either---an 8-10 year old tournament, which would inevitably stir up memories of my Little League glory days while simultaneously reminding me just how distant my sports journalism glory days remain. That is, if "my sports journalism glory days" ever come to fruition. They currently feel like they will stay caged in my dream world forever.

To make matters worse, the NBA lockout continues and I struggle daily to satisfy my basketball fix. Only during a lockout can I see this (which might as well go under the headline: a few NBA stars and a handful of other decent basketball players will play a glorified pickup game) and immediately call my friend in Washington, DC to inquire whether I can stay with him for the weekend and buy tickets to the event. Yes, I know the play won't be NBA caliber. Yes, I know I don't have nearly enough money to waste on a trip to DC. Yes, I know Gary Neal doesn't seem like the most exciting choice for an All-Star style track meet (nor would he normally fall anywhere near my list of "players I would pay to watch play basketball"). But it's basketball, damn it, and my life doesn't have nearly enough of it right now.

I have baseball instead. 8-10 year olds playing baseball on a field with a centerfield wall that stands 160 feet from home plate, no less. The last time I played baseball, I struck out four batters in one inning (true story). But partly because I was wilder than Charlie Sheen during a weekend-long binge and partly because I missed dozens of practices for AAU basketball, that was the one inning my freshman baseball coach allowed me to pitch. My strikeout/inning ratio might be the best ever recorded in high school baseball, but my love for playing America's favorite pastime had abandoned me entirely. After triumphantly walking off the mound and flipping my coach the bird (I didn't really, but I might as well have), my baseball playing career was finished.

I remained a fan, at least temporarily. But I was a reverse bandwagon Red Sox fan. Before the Curse ended, I watched the Sox play every single night. I loved Manny Ramirez's swing; Big Papi's joviality; Nomar's hustle; and the way all of Fenway stood in unison whenever Pedro Martinez got two strikes on a batter. On the night the Sox finished off the Yankees in 2004, my friends and I started streaking throughout my town. We might have taken twelves steps before wimping out and putting our clothes back on, but the point is that we were excited enough to bear our wieners to the entire community, if only briefly.

After that night, my Red Sox fandom went downhill -- nothing could ever compare to erasing a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees. The Sox won the World Series in St. Louis, and my buddies and I did not streak. Actually, we did not make fools of ourselves in any way. The Red Sox were expected to beat the Cardinals. There was nothing magical about the World Series win except that it ended the Curse. And even the Curse had felt lifted before, as soon as the Sox dispatched the Yankees using a script that came right out of an impossibly unrealistic sports movie.

Three years later, the Sox won the World Series again. I no longer watched every regular season game. I no longer spent as much time watching the Red Sox as I did with my own family members. I no longer cared as much because the 2004 World Series title irrevocably altered my life as a Red Sox fan. I felt like a husband in a miserable marriage -- once, I had been in love and even holding hands felt like ecstasy. But after the wedding, my marriage to the Red Sox became a chore. It sucked, and no matter how hard I tried to find it, that initial spirit was gone. The Red Sox were named the 2007 World Series champions, and I have not watched a full regular season game once since.

With my baseball past in mind, I drove to the field (in my mother's car, since mine was still in the shop) to cover this 8-10 year old baseball tournament, a player who had become disenchanted, a fan whose passion had long since gone, a sports writer who certainly never envisioned covering a pre-teen baseball game in 100-degree heat. A person's memories and experiences shape how he interprets the present, and I feared my confrontational past with baseball would impair my vision and skew my story. Instead, the game took me right back to the time when baseball was one of my lovers. The game held my hand and my heart fluttered like it was our first date.

The players were miniature models of Major Leaguers. A boy named Vinny toed the rubber for the home team, the Angels, and he had swagger for days. He was taller than everyone else, and stronger, and even though he was nine or ten years old, he looked like the type of kid who would need to shave daily by 6th grade. He also had a hell of a right arm, one he used to strike out seven opponents in just three innings. But before every pitch, he looked into the bleachers at a man, I suspect it was his father, for reassurance.

When Vinny hit, he used the same routine before every pitch: he wiped away the dirt with his right cleat, then wiped it back with his left. He finally settled in, stared down the pitcher, and two out of three times the day I saw him, roped line drives into the outfield. I didn't know which pro he was pretending to be -- maybe Vladimir Guerrero, maybe Adrian Gonzalez, maybe Alex Rodriguez, but he was trying to be somebody. The one time Vinny made an out, he lifted a fly ball that almost scraped the right field fence on its way down. After the out, he walked past a number of parents, past a group of young girls playing catch, past the 12-year old announcing the game, all the way to the man I assumed was Vinny's father.

"We could have used a hit there," Vinny said, almost pouting. I suddenly remembered he was just ten years old.

"It's fine, son," the man replied. "You put a charge into that one. Even the best hitters only hit .300."

The game was still going on, and Vinny's teammate hit a line shot into right-center. The single probably could have scored a runner from second, but the Angels third-base coach held up the stop sign and the runner, understandably, stopped. Vinny called his coach's name and a mischievous smile enveloped Vinny's face. The coach looked over and Vinny windmilled his arm, telling the coach he should have waved the runner home. Then Vinny laughed like Adam Smith's invisible hand was tickling him relentlessly, and the coach followed suit.

The game ended and Vinny's team beat their opponent, the Falcons. He and his relief pitcher combined to pitch a one-hitter. They celebrated by playing a brief game of pickle with somebody's little sister. The opposing starting pitcher, named Anthony, struck out eight batters; he also pitched out of the stretch with runners on base even though nobody was allowed to steal. I spoke to his father after the game -- Anthony just wanted to use the same mechanics as his heroes. That's why he threw curveballs, too, and sliders, and that's probably why he grabbed his right pant leg in between every pitch.

In the fifth inning, a player named Nate struck out swinging at a pitch six inches above his head. His father sat near me and remarked, "Oh, no!" Nate briefly looked shaken by his feeble swing and disastrous at-bat. But when I looked back a few seconds later, he was already smiling and chanting, "We want a double" to one of his teammates.

The game ended and most members of both teams stayed to watch a game being played on an adjacent field. The visiting team went ahead by two runs in the top of the last inning. But the home team responded with a home run. Then another. The game was tied. Three of the Falcons, whose loss eliminated them from the tournament, were eating hot dogs outside the right field fence. Two more were eating sno-cones. One of the hot dog eaters sprinted across the outfield after the second home run. Yes, he sprinted across a field during the middle of a game he wasn't playing in. The outfielders didn't know how to react. Neither did the boy's parents.

The second game continued into extra innings. The visiting team launched two home runs and collected six runs. The home team went down in order. I spoke to both coaches after the game. The winning coach noted his team's poor pitching. The losing coach couldn't stop smiling.

"To hit two home runs to tie it, that's every kid's dream," he said. "These kids are playing great. I'm really proud of them."

My flat tire and the NBA lockout did not enter my mind once all evening.