I wanted to go to a baseball game

On July 25, 2015, I wanted to go to a baseball game. So I did.

I'm American. I can go to all the soccer games I want, try to understand Formula One, and even watch every minute of NFL Redzone, but my boyhood days were and are spent chasing pop-flys, practicing my home run trot, and trying to collect baseball cards from the entire 1995 Braves team (Javy Lopez, Fred McGriff, Mark Lemke, Jeff Blauser, Chipper Jones, Ryan Klesko, Marquis Grissom, David Justice with Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Steve Avery, and Kent Merkcer in the rotation).*

So, on July 25, 2015, I wanted to go to a baseball game. So I did. The Smokies had a 5-game series with the Lookouts, and Wilson Contreras was wrecking balls across the summer on his way to the majors.

A month earlier, I had a panic attack. I'd had small ones before, triggered by too many Monster Energy Drinks, not enough sleep, and growing up too fast. Those were passing thunderstorms that came and went. This was a Cat-5 hurricane that took days.

After it happened, for a month, my insides looked like those pictures of the coast after one of those storms went through. The sun might be out, but there are empty foundations, scattered plywood, wreckage, and wasteland.

And so, on July 25, I really wanted to go to a baseball game. So I did. The next evening, I was at Barberito's eating a mini burrito with Heavy-D salsa, and I realized I wanted to go again. So I did.

I don't know why. Something felt safe about July evenings hanging on late into the night with purple-blue flood lights beaming down on a 2-1 count. Or I like ballpark hot dogs or ice cream in a batting helmet.

Sometimes, I worry sports are just a distraction from the real stuff. That's true. Let's also admit that sometimes, we need a break from the real stuff. For the 23-year-old who spent a few days with his life and his chest caving in on him, paying 12 bucks for bleacher seats and watching Matt Garza pitch a rehab assignment was the real stuff.

Today, I thought about that 23-year-old watching the Smokies. Some days, I'm still asking the questions he was asking, questions that feel like choppy waters and gray clouds on the horizon. It's been 9 years. I'd like to kick them by now. But I'm still hunkering down, hoping for the best. Some things just hold on to me.

That's not all bad. The need to sit in the bleachers at a ball game and think about buying sunflower seeds hangs on to me, too, even though I still can't open the husk with my tongue.

This evening, I walked to the high school next to my neighborhood. The stadium lights beamed, the home team was up by 8 in the 4th, and the visitors were warming up a guy who threw sidearm to try and stop the bleeding. So I sat down, and something peaceful, something April, June, July, came over me. It could be a distraction — maybe it's eternal boyhood.

I wanted to go to a baseball game.

So I did.

*In 1998, "Slammin' Sammy Sosa" was at the peak of his powers, so I was inevitably called "Slammin' Sammy" during instructional league baseball despite having infield power. My mutation into a Chicago Cubs fan began and never stopped.