Dug In
First Wrigley, now this. Can’t anyone leave well enough alone? Checking in on Rand Wonio Field, I see the dugouts are gone. They were old and worn, made of wood some decades ago. The benches were small, the roofs leaked and birds nested in them. They were nowhere near on par with the quality of the baseball teams they sheltered, and it’s a wise decision to replace them. Still, it’s a shock to see them gone. By next year, new dugouts will stand in their place, sheltering the next few decades of 13 – 16 year-old Davenport ballplayers. In my head, I understand they were on borrowed time, and replacing them is a good thing.
My heart lives some distance from my head, though. I was lucky enough to borrow a season under them as the last year I skippered a team Colin played on. The team was crazy good, but that had little to do with the fond memories.
Dugouts are the best. There’s no place like them in sports. Football sidelines are too spread out. Basketball benches are too close to the stands. Hockey benches are too brief shelters in the storm, just trying to catch your breath before the next shift. Perhaps curling comes close, but I’ve never played so I don’t know for sure.
Dugouts are memory factories. Laconic jesters, taking it all in, and having fun with all of it. Sunflower seeds. Spitting. Wardrobe malfunctions. Juggling baseballs, or protective cups, as the case may be. Deep discussions on the relative merits of beef jerky and bubble gum brands. High fives after coming home and pats on the back after strikeouts from the friends who matter most. Talking strategy - mostly about girls - and not having a clue. All sheltered from the attentive ears of moms, sitting in the bleachers. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas doesn’t come close to the dugout brotherhood.
And now they’re gone.
It was like Wrigley Field. The team announces a $500 million plan to improve the ballpark and I think to myself that’s a big number to remove the lights. Or Modern Woodmen Park. Bill Veeck’s reincarnation (that’s high praise, if you’re confused) Dave Heller wants to move a roller coaster that’s for sale in Florida to wrap around the ballpark and I talk him into a Ferris Wheel instead. Even though a Ferris Wheel is as traditional an amusement as you can find beyond a finger in a belly-button, it sent a few people into a tizzy. While those few tizzied, many, many more came to the ballpark. The wheel spins, the views make new memories, the batters are so locked in they could care less, and the River Bandits continue to ramp up their attendance records.
I’ll confess I’ve never taken a ride in the Ferris Wheel. I’m not a tizzier, but I am a NIMBP. Not In My Ball Park.
“My” is the operative word in the acronym. How is something I don’t own mine to have dominion over? Way back when, I was aghast at the prospect of lights in Wrigley Field, but didn't quite have enough spare cash to buy the team. I still haven’t gone to a night game and never will. The best baseball (read: the baseball of my youth) was day baseball. So the “No Lights In Wrigley Field” t-shirt I bought in 1988 still gets worn to the games, just so I can show everyone I’m a true believer (read: old). Kris Bryant hits the longest home run this 2015 season by bouncing a dinger off the left field video board and Kyle Schwarber adds to the considerable history of the Cubs with a shot that lands on top of the right field video board. Life, (and lore) apparently, goes on.
But the “my” doesn’t loosen its grip easily. We go somewhere / meet someone, have a good experience and want to repeat the experience. Favorite restaurant. Favorite park. Favorite dugout. Favorite city. Favorite people. Much as we avoid confronting it, none of them are “ours” and all of them are all on borrowed time. As are we.
So on this day of thanksgiving, I’ll not be rueful for some well-weathered wood that has moved on. I’ll be thankful for the memories already made, and those yet to be made.
