Chasing The Darkness, Rounding Third & Still Wanting To Just Go Home…
When I was a couple of decades younger than I am now, I used to spend a lot of time driving the back roads of this rural area I call the center of my spider’s web with a variety of combinations of friends and several packs of Camel filters. Often on these mini-adventures I’d mention how someday I’d hope to wake up just before sunrise and trade the back roads for the highway heading west and see just how far I could make it before the sun set. Be careful what you wish for children. That was eighteen years ago and I’ve been chasing the darkness ever since.
So fittingly, it’s just before the sunrise as I sit here pounding away on the keyboard far too many days removed from my previous writing session with western travel on my mind and 7 days in my way of being surrounded by the game of baseball.
The motivation that sent me on this quest has resurfaced as the winter weather gives way to the time of spring, when a man’s heart turns to love and the game, and frankly the love of the game. There’s a pounding in my chest tonight and that feeling remains just as it always did. That desire to go where one can when they can not go where they want. The need for familiarity in an unfamiliar place. A face in the crowd at peace among strangers. A face in a mind that still laughs, still smiles, still looks like it used to. The need for that breathless feeling that overtakes you when you walk in and the whole world opens up.
Voices of distress and the bark of the black dog of winter are replaced with the one that says, “spring will be here, soon.” and a whisper that softly speaks the phrase, “Go west, young man.”
Where have all the cowboys gone you ask? Riding off into the sunset, to kiss the horse and chase the darkness one more time. A pilgrimage in the Sonoran, to a baseball Mecca, a desert search for baseball Allah.
Friday March 9th
– Cleveland Indians @ Milwaukee Brewers – Maryvale Baseball Park – Phoenix, AZ
Saturday March 10th
– Texas Rangers @ Chicago White Sox – Camelback Ranch – Glendale, AZ
– Los Angeles Dodgers @ Chicago White Sox – Camelback Ranch – Glendale, AZ
Sunday March 11th – Texas Rangers v. Cleveland Indians – Surprise Stadium – Surprise, AZ
Monday March 12th – Texas Rangers @ Seattle Mariners – Peoria Sports Complex – Peoria, AZ
Tuesday March 13th
– Texas Rangers @ Cleveland Indians – Goodyear Ballpark – Goodyear, AZ
Wednesday March 14th
– Texas Rangers v. Colorado Rockies – Surprise Stadium – Surprise, AZ
– Los Angeles Dodgers @ Cincinnati Reds – Goodyear Ballpark – Goodyear, AZ
Thursday March 15th
– Texas Rangers v. Oakland Athletics – Surprise Stadium – Surprise, AZ
– San Francisco Giants @ Seattle Mariners – Peoria Sports Complex – Peoria, AZ
Friday March 16th
– Texas Rangers @ Los Angeles Dodgers – Camelback Ranch – Glendale, AZ
– Seattle Mariners @ Oakland Athletics – Phoenix Municipal Stadium – Phoenix, AZ
Saturday March 17th
– Los Angeles Dodgers @ Colorado Rockies – Salt River Field At Talking Stick – Scottsdale, AZ
– San Francisco Giants @ Los Angeles Dodgers – Camelback Ranch – Glendale, AZ
Terminal Blues On The Tarmac: Return Flights To The Dead Zone, Prayers For Hibernation, & Yu Darvish
Somewhere Over Texas - October 2011
The 2011 Major and Minor League Baseball seasons began and with it came the journey that has been chronicled here, and God willing will resume in March of 2012 and continue beyond until the hollowed grounds and cathedrals across the North American continent have all been journeyed to and within. This experience began as recovery process and has had its benefits and wonderful moments. The misdirected escape from the torment of loss and quest for a home without the love of a woman and child I once called mine, evolved into a highway directly to that which helped me remember rather than try to forget. Old familiar faces and places were passed through and visited and what were once objects of fantasy became common place. The places chosen transformed from mere dream to a reality as has happened with other hopes and dreams in other areas of my life during my brief history. Over the course of this experiment/experience every game became equally magnificent and the teams and stadiums visited were just as imagined and more. And upon completion of the season and my travels for the year, the recovery and rebirth process, the names of the cities, stadiums, and teams transformed from a to-do list to names being marked off like those on a hit list. From each place, small memorabilia were taken as if they were artifacts kept by a serial murder, only my victims were not made of blood and bone, but constructed of concrete and steel and the glory that is the game of baseball.
It may seem as though my life has been mired in waves of tragedy over the previous year. Lost love. Lost ways. Lost mind. A persona and ego sent to roam the earth devastated by hurt and the pain of departure, when in fact the reason I roam the earth, particularly the baseball cathedrals of North America is obviously due to the fact I was hurt and perhaps have hurt others in a way that in reality no distance or amount of innings, no-hitters, home runs, playoff experiences can ever truly heal.
So much of that journey sits waiting to be released for public consumption, yet I can’t seem to muster the desire to rehash all that negativity wrapped in the realm of baseball. However, for the sake of storytelling and continuity before my next adventure it’s only right I must. That said, 2012 cannot be solely based upon a life without. The musings can no longer be energized entirely by the matters of a broken heart, misplaced anger, and a moment of clarity first realized in its fullest upon the long drive home from the National League Division Game 2 in Milwaukee between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Milwaukee Brewers. Such a journey must also encompass the love of the life on the road, in the park, around the game. And while true, I longed for a life with another, what I truly long for is a life with someone who understands the magic of this world around the game and across this country and the rest of the world I’ve come to know and is not afraid to see with me. There is a reason for all of this and deep down I know now and have for some time that it goes beyond the insults and abandonment of a love that was never true or the emptiness left when the final out of the season is recorded that is only filled when the warmth when spring rolls round. The point is, somethings firmly in grasps must eventually be let go in order to grab a hold on that which is within reach.
For a while during this long and cold dead zone without the game, I’ve often wondered what will be my direction, what will I clinch that is off in the distance? It seems that in all the waiting and wondering the answer appeared on its own in two forms. The first of which being that of Yu Darvish.
Twenty-four hours from now the world of professional baseball will know whether or not the Japanese pitching sensation will join the two-time defending American League champion Texas Rangers. And while the world waits, the preparations have been made in order to be a part of the potential frenzy surrounding his arrival at Spring Training in Surprise, Arizona. By tomorrow afternoon, I will know if the ten days worth of Texas Rangers tickets purchased for their upcoming spring games will have been purchased in a prophetic sense in what I’ve deemed my “Desert Search For Baseball Allah” in contrast to last seasons “The Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Major League Baseball Tour” or simply an opportunity to motor west for time well spent with more minor gods of the game.
The second answer form, well, I guess you could say it’s a more noble tale and perhaps the one I should’ve never stopped telling in the first place. And on that note, I’ll close this round of madness, slip into the hibernation of the winter’s night smothered by the black dog (what I lovingly and commonly call the lack of baseball seasonal depression)and wait for word from the East via those in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
Tonight I’ve come to terms with it all and I pray for snow, future flights to Phoenix and a ride with the devil, and Japanese pitching phenoms coming to terms with a 6th year club option.
Until next time…
Diary Of A Mad Fan 