The Dream is Bigger Than the Game

It had taken us three years to accomplish our goal, but we did it, last weekend.

Three years ago my oldest son, Dave, and I talked about our wish list for the baseball parks we wanted to visit. That included some of the oldest and most prestigious stadiums in professional baseball: Fenway in Boston, Yankee Stadium (now the new Yankee Stadium, not the one we dreamed of) in New York City, and Wrigley Field in Chicago. Of course, the new Busch Stadium, home of our favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals, was a must. Dodger Stadium was high on our list too, as was the Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds.

But time---I do have three other kids, plus Dave and I didn’t want to be away for more than a day---and money, we didn’t have much, forced us to narrow our list to the ballparks within a day’s drive that wouldn’t require an overnight stay. That left three ballparks: Bush Stadium (St. Louis), Wrigley Field (Chicago), and the Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati).

We started in Chicago three years ago (Wrigley turned out to be my favorite ballpark, although it doesn’t host my favorite team) where we watched the Cubbies defeat our Cards, moved last year to St. Louis where our Redbirds beat the Orioles, and just last weekend we ended up in Cincinnati where we witnessed the Reds pounding of the Cubs.

As we were driving back after the Cincinnati game, we thought of making another run of it, a new three year plan: why not the new Yankee Stadium, the Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, and Nationals Park in D.C.? How about an East Coast Baseball Dream? “Yeah,” I said, “that would be awesome,” even as I was thinking of the time and money, mainly the money.

After leaving Dave at Centre College in Danville, KY., I drove on alone to Lebanon, KY., and deep in my thoughts, wondered what was so important about those games. The atmosphere of the ballpark is great, but it’s more than that. You couldn’t pay me to go to a ball game and sit by myself. Then I reflected on the movie, Field of Dreams, and the words of “Terrence Mann,” played by James Earl Jones, who said, in that luxurious voice of his: “People will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom…And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

I got it. We went to Wrigley, and Busch, and the Great American Ball Park, not to study stadium architecture, but to relive baseball moments of former days: summer evenings at the Astrodome in Houston, TX., a blistering afternoon at the Ball Park in Arlington, TX., many a sweltering practice at the Prien Lake Little League Park in Lake Charles, LA., and our own imaginary games (our team always managed to win) in our front yard everywhere we’ve lived. And with every ball park we enter, those memories are resurrected; they’re embedded in our psyche, drawn forth with the aroma of fresh, roasted peanuts, the echo of the crowd in the stadium’s corridors, and the shout of the umpire, “Batter Up!” Ghost ballparks come alive too, like the old Sportsman’s Park, predecessor of Busch Stadium, where in 1963, I sat enthralled, watching Stan the Man Musial in his last year of play, thinking to myself as I scanned the stadium while chomping down on a hot dog as big as myself, “I’m in a real baseball stadium.”

I don’t know where we will be next year---maybe we’ll revisit one of the ballparks, but wherever we are, I want to be all there, living a dream--- completely alive in that moment.

“Thanks for taking me, Dad, we did it.”

‘You’re welcome, Dave, but we’re not done yet. Keep dreaming.”


Life Matters is written by David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. His email is drdavid@davidbwhitock.com. You can also visit David’s website, www.davidbwhitlock.com





It had taken us three years to accomplish our goal, but we did it, last weekend.

Three years ago my oldest son, Dave, and I talked about our wish list for the baseball parks we wanted to visit. That included some of the oldest and most prestigious stadiums in professional baseball: Fenway in Boston, Yankee Stadium (now the new Yankee Stadium, not the one we dreamed of) in New York City, and Wrigley Field in Chicago. Of course, the new Busch Stadium, home of our favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals, was a must. Dodger Stadium was high on our list too, as was the Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds.

But time---I do have three other kids, plus Dave and I didn’t want to be away for more than a day---and money, we didn’t have much, forced us to narrow our list to the ballparks within a day’s drive that wouldn’t require an overnight stay. That left three ballparks: Bush Stadium (St. Louis), Wrigley Field (Chicago), and the Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati).

We started in Chicago three years ago (Wrigley turned out to be my favorite ballpark, although it doesn’t host my favorite team) where we watched the Cubbies defeat our Cards, moved last year to St. Louis where our Redbirds beat the Orioles, and just last weekend we ended up in Cincinnati where we witnessed the Reds pounding of the Cubs.

As we were driving back after the Cincinnati game, we thought of making another run of it, a new three year plan: why not the new Yankee Stadium, the Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, and Nationals Park in D.C.? How about an East Coast Baseball Dream? “Yeah,” I said, “that would be awesome,” even as I was thinking of the time and money, mainly the money.

After leaving Dave at Centre College in Danville, KY., I drove on alone to Lebanon, KY., and deep in my thoughts, wondered what was so important about those games. The atmosphere of the ballpark is great, but it’s more than that. You couldn’t pay me to go to a ball game and sit by myself. Then I reflected on the movie, Field of Dreams, and the words of “Terrence Mann,” played by James Earl Jones, who said, in that luxurious voice of his: “People will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom…And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

I got it. We went to Wrigley, and Busch, and the Great American Ball Park, not to study stadium architecture, but to relive baseball moments of former days: summer evenings at the Astrodome in Houston, TX., a blistering afternoon at the Ball Park in Arlington, TX., many a sweltering practice at the Prien Lake Little League Park in Lake Charles, LA., and our own imaginary games (our team always managed to win) in our front yard everywhere we’ve lived. And with every ball park we enter, those memories are resurrected; they’re embedded in our psyche, drawn forth with the aroma of fresh, roasted peanuts, the echo of the crowd in the stadium’s corridors, and the shout of the umpire, “Batter Up!” Ghost ballparks come alive too, like the old Sportsman’s Park, predecessor of Busch Stadium, where in 1963, I sat enthralled, watching Stan the Man Musial in his last year of play, thinking to myself as I scanned the stadium while chomping down on a hot dog as big as myself, “I’m in a real baseball stadium.”

I don’t know where we will be next year---maybe we’ll revisit one of the ballparks, but wherever we are, I want to be all there, living a dream--- completely alive in that moment.

“Thanks for taking me, Dad, we did it.”

‘You’re welcome, Dave, but we’re not done yet. Keep dreaming.”


Life Matters is written by David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. His email is drdavid@davidbwhitock.com. You can also visit David’s website, www.davidbwhitlock.com





“The Dream is Bigger than the Game”
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D.


It had taken us three years to accomplish our goal, but we did it, last weekend.

Three years ago my oldest son, Dave, and I talked about our wish list for the baseball parks we wanted to visit. That included some of the oldest and most prestigious stadiums in professional baseball: Fenway in Boston, Yankee Stadium (now the new Yankee Stadium, not the one we dreamed of) in New York City, and Wrigley Field in Chicago. Of course, the new Busch Stadium, home of our favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals, was a must. Dodger Stadium was high on our list too, as was the Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds.

But time---I do have three other kids, plus Dave and I didn’t want to be away for more than a day---and money, we didn’t have much, forced us to narrow our list to the ballparks within a day’s drive that wouldn’t require an overnight stay. That left three ballparks: Bush Stadium (St. Louis), Wrigley Field (Chicago), and the Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati).

We started in Chicago three years ago (Wrigley turned out to be my favorite ballpark, although it doesn’t host my favorite team) where we watched the Cubbies defeat our Cards, moved last year to St. Louis where our Redbirds beat the Orioles, and just last weekend we ended up in Cincinnati where we witnessed the Reds pounding of the Cubs.

As we were driving back after the Cincinnati game, we thought of making another run of it, a new three year plan: why not the new Yankee Stadium, the Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, and Nationals Park in D.C.? How about an East Coast Baseball Dream? “Yeah,” I said, “that would be awesome,” even as I was thinking of the time and money, mainly the money.

After leaving Dave at Centre College in Danville, KY., I drove on alone to Lebanon, KY., and deep in my thoughts, wondered what was so important about those games. The atmosphere of the ballpark is great, but it’s more than that. You couldn’t pay me to go to a ball game and sit by myself. Then I reflected on the movie, Field of Dreams, and the words of “Terrence Mann,” played by James Earl Jones, who said, in that luxurious voice of his: “People will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom…And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

I got it. We went to Wrigley, and Busch, and the Great American Ball Park, not to study stadium architecture, but to relive baseball moments of former days: summer evenings at the Astrodome in Houston, TX., a blistering afternoon at the Ball Park in Arlington, TX., many a sweltering practice at the Prien Lake Little League Park in Lake Charles, LA., and our own imaginary games (our team always managed to win) in our front yard everywhere we’ve lived. And with every ball park we enter, those memories are resurrected; they’re embedded in our psyche, drawn forth with the aroma of fresh, roasted peanuts, the echo of the crowd in the stadium’s corridors, and the shout of the umpire, “Batter Up!” Ghost ballparks come alive too, like the old Sportsman’s Park, predecessor of Busch Stadium, where in 1963, I sat enthralled, watching Stan the Man Musial in his last year of play, thinking to myself as I scanned the stadium while chomping down on a hot dog as big as myself, “I’m in a real baseball stadium.”

I don’t know where we will be next year---maybe we’ll revisit one of the ballparks, but wherever we are, I want to be all there, living a dream--- completely alive in that moment.

“Thanks for taking me, Dad, we did it.”

‘You’re welcome, Dave, but we’re not done yet. Keep dreaming.”


Life Matters is written by David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. His email is drdavid@davidbwhitock.com. You can also visit David’s website, www.davidbwhitlock.com

"It Breaks Your Heart"

Angelo Bartlett Giamatti, former President of Yale University and before his untimely death in 1989 at the age of 51, the 7th Commissioner of Major League Baseball, said of the game he loved, “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.”

Anyone who watched the replay of Armando Galarraga’s elation in that split second when he rightly assumed he had pitched the perfect baseball game---only the 21st perfect game in baseball history, the first 28-out perfect game, the first perfect game for a Detroit Tiger pitcher--- anyone who watched him rise to baseball heaven in that ecstatic moment, anyone who winced in sympathy with his pain when an umpire snatched him from it in an instant, pulling him from the joy, pushing him to the agony, and all because of a botched call, anyone who watched the replay where perfect was called imperfect, flawless declared flawed, faultless found blemished, anyone who watched the wry smile on Galarraga’s face at the realization of the loss, anyone who saw the tears of personal disappointment on umpire Jim Joyce’s face upon admitting he made an enormously inexcusable mistake, anyone who viewed that historic scene would agree with Giamatti, “It breaks your heart.”

And that’s why I love baseball.

Baseball is life, really. Not in the sense that it in itself gives us a meaning, a purpose, or a reason for living. Rather, the game of baseball mirrors so many of life’s realities: it is completely fair and subject to an umpire’s mistake; it’s frequently dramatic and often mundane; it’s intense and relaxing; it keeps you on the edge of your seat while you wait and wait for something, anything, to happen; it’s a game in which many are overpaid and more don’t earn enough, a game where a player’s mistakes might be published daily and his perfections forgotten in a moment; it is a sport that displays the spoiled rottenness of some and the graceful compassion of others. Just like life.

And that brings me back to pitcher Armando Galarraga and umpire Jim Joyce. Joyce, who is by no means an incompetent, made a mistake. Until he saw the replay, he was convinced had made right call. As soon as he recognized he hadn’t, he headed to the Tiger’s clubhouse to apologize, requesting to speak personally with Galarraga. Joyce then publicly apologized with sincere sympathy for Galarraga: “I took a perfect game away from that kid over there who worked his (*#*!) off all night.” And Galarraga graciously accepted. “He really feels bad, probably more bad than me,” he said. In a public display of forgiveness, the next night Gallarraga presented the lineup card to Joyce at the beginning of the game. Both shook hands. Then, Joyce wept.

This baseball episode will be a favorite rerun more for the authentic and spontaneous exhibition of compassion and forgiveness in the leading characters’ roles than for the missed call or the perfect game.

And isn’t that like life when lived as it should and can be? What we give in love, kindness, and forgiveness is what endures. We often make mistakes, sometimes enormous ones, publicly. And it’s embarrassing. But, every now and then we get it all together at just the right moment. It’s perfect, beautiful. But it only takes one person who mistakes a work of art for the mediocrity of an amateur, and the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the artist can die in an instant. And sometimes the artist and judge are one and the same: ourselves. It’s then, when we, the judge or the artist, must do what Joyce and Galarraga did: admit our mistake and extend the hand of forgiveness, knowing in our heart that when we pitch the perfect game, no one can take it away, even when no one recognizes it for what it truly is, even when no one recognizes it at all.

And that’s life. It breaks your heart. It’s designed that way.