The Quest For Happy & Why The Fourth of July Would Be A Good Day To Die

I am by no means one who is qualified to dole out advice, but upon reading a message received from a friend of mine with the statement “right now I’m trying to figure out what to do to make me happy again”  it compels me to ponder just what brought about these occasional rants and raves and recounts of various baseball/sports experiences that I affectionately call the Diary Of A Mad Fan.

The quest for happy is as individual a pursuit as standing in the batter’s box and facing down a 95 mph pitch in search of a milestone, say like 3000 hits. Last week, I had the hopes of seeing such a feat in Cincinnati, Ohio during the June 22nd game between the New York Yankees and the Cincinnati Reds. However, Derek Jeter’s calf injury eight days prior made that an impossibility and if I had a very different outlook on life, the disappointment of instead watching an afternoon affair featuring mostly Yankees back-up players would’ve made for a less than memorable day. However, I’m not a glass is half empty guy, more of a what’s in the glass that counts, so the 4-2 Yankees win thanks to a Jorge Posada 2-run home run to right field was just as fulfilling as say witnessing baseball history, and that is seeing the first Yankees player ever to reach the 3000 hit milestone.

The game is, was, and always will be my solace, my house of refuge, the arms that wrap around me to comfort. It’s the happy thought I use to fly. Some folks don’t understand my obsession and religious zealotry for the game, but it is that indeed. 4256, 755, *762, 1406, 2632 are my John 3:16 and Psalm 23. The cardboard placed in protective sleeves in rows of three, nine per page, in three-ring binders are my photo albums. The stubs and printed out tickets my documentation of being in that moment, on that particular day in history where I sat with thousands of my kind watching history be made into a box score and a place in the standings.

I have spent a great deal of time at baseball parks this year. More perhaps than any year before, aside from the days of making the drive to Cooper Stadium in Columbus, Ohio when the Clippers were affiliated with the Bronx Bombers. Of course, those days are gone. And while the drives are a bit longer and the games feature more often than not MLB teams than as were the days watching the minor leaguers, it’s still where I go to heal my hurts and smile, win, lose, rain or shine.

In the past, I’ve gone with family, friends, on dates. Nowadays, I prefer to go alone, which has been the case for every game this year, aside from the upcoming July 4th meeting between the Yankees and the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field and perhaps another shot at seeing Jeter’s 3000th hit.  It’s become my individual pursuit, my happy place, it’s baseball and it always has been.

And that’s the point of this venture into the mind of a baseball junkie tonight. My piece of advice, you don’t have to “find” what makes you happy, more often than not, you’ve already done it, it’s not so much of a search or quest as it is remembering.

Until next time…