Just a Baseball Fan

The night baseball reminded me I was more than the worst thing I’d ever done

Everything was unraveling, and it was all because of me.

Years of drinking. Years of gambling. Years of secrets, hiding, and an almost complete unwillingness to tell the truth about nearly any part of my life. My career had imploded; its details splattered across the newspaper. There would be no more political campaigns for me. My marriage was coming to an end. I was only seeing my daughter a couple of days each week, and I had no idea what kind of relationship I’d ever have with my son, who would arrive later that summer.

I was doing what I thought I could to take responsibility for all the damage I had caused. But every day was shrouded by a feeling of complete and total overwhelm.

In February and early March, I had spent twenty-eight days in an inpatient treatment facility. After finishing my time in treatment, I moved into a sober living house with seven other men, all of whom were either established in or seeking long-term recovery from various addictions. Although the individual details of everyone’s story were different, I was amazed by how similar each of their roads were to my own. And those who had put together some significant recovery time recognized the need to occasionally come up for air, especially in those moments when I felt I was drowning.

So one Thursday night in mid-April, all eight of us went out to Safeco Field

.

By 2013, I’d been living in the Pacific Northwest for seven years. The Mariners hadn’t yet become my team in the way they eventually would, but I certainly watched them more than any other team simply because they were the hometown club. I liked them, even though the previous few seasons had left an awful lot to be desired. I had plenty of memories of games at Safeco, many of which were somewhat clouded by the drunken state I would generally find myself in by, say, the sixth inning.

For that and so many other reasons, this night felt altogether different.

Walking through the gates, it felt like I was walking into something even bigger than a baseball park. It felt like I was walking into one of the only places I could imagine where, for at least a few hours, everything didn’t have to revolve around the wreckage I had created. The grass was that special kind of green you only see at the ballpark. The smell of hot dogs hit me like a ton of bricks as we walked around the concourse. Even the smell of beer, which I associated with countless nights at Safeco, felt different while being surrounded by other men who, like me, were trying to rebuild their lives. Its pull was still as familiar as ever, but I was surprised it wasn’t stronger.

Justin Verlander started the game for Detroit, who were the defending American League champions, and Hisashi Iwakuma, a favorite of mine, took the mound for the Mariners. Both teams kept putting up zero after zero, inning after inning, settling into the type of pitching duel that devoted baseball fans love far more than the casual viewers. One of my roommates, a Detroit native, was a rabid Tigers fan, and we dissected every pitch together, reacting in unison to every swing, hoping a foul ball would find our section.

The conversations weren’t about lawyers or court dates or consequences. We didn’t talk about regret. For a few hours, the conversation revolved entirely around baseball and brotherhood, and the joy of sharing something so many of us loved so deeply.

I distinctly remember wondering whether I was even allowed to feel that way. Was it permissible for someone who had caused so much pain to spend three hours enjoying a baseball game? Could someone who had blown apart his life, and the lives of so many people around him, be allowed to breathe for a little while? My gut told me, quite loudly, that the answer should be an unequivocal no. Even with the ongoing encouragement of sober friends, most of whom understood recovery far better than I did at the time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that allowing myself a few hours of joy was somehow irresponsible. Unfair to others. Selfish.

Then I made a mistake. All the roommates gathered for a picture at the game, and I opted to post it on Facebook.

I would discover not long after the game that the reaction from those I had hurt was, to put it mildly, not positive. Looking back, I completely understand. Posting that was a mistake. Going to the game may have been exactly what I needed. But broadcasting it showed how little I still fully understood the impact my actions had on so many others. Breathing for a few hours was just fine. Healthy, even. Telling the world about it was tone deaf to the moment.

The Mariners ended up winning that night 2-0. Verlander and Iwakuma both threw brilliant ballgames, with the Tigers’ ace striking out 12, but also allowing two runs in the bottom of the seventh on RBI hits from Kyle Seager and Endy Chávez.

That final score didn’t mean anything, really. Driving back to the house with my roommates that night, the world around me felt as heavy as ever.

That night at the game wasn’t about escaping responsibility or forgetting the things I had done. But for one ordinary Thursday evening in April, baseball had given me something I didn’t even realize I needed: a chance to stop being defined entirely by the worst thing I had ever done.

I’ve thought about that game many times over the years. Not because of the details of the game itself, or even because the Mariners won a tight one. Not because the game somehow changed my life. But because it taught me that even in the middle of shame, grief, and dire consequences, I was still capable of sitting at a baseball game, arguing about pitches, hoping for a foul ball, and letting myself go for nine innings. For a few hours, I wasn’t a headline in the paper.

I was just a baseball fan.