Alone with the Game

Sometimes, baseball is the only friend you want and need. (via Dale Cruse)

My husband is a recovering alcoholic. He’ll be three years sober in August. He not only attends AA meetings every night, he also chairs meetings, speaks at meetings and helps out in general, all as a means of giving back to the community that gave him his sobriety. That leaves me alone a lot. I’m fine with that. It’s what keeps him sober. And it gives me the television – and baseball – to myself.

***

I’ve been a Yankees fan – and baseball fan in general – since I was a little kid, when my mom used to write down the lineup for me so I could memorize it. She raised me on Yankee baseball, on Thurman Munson and Bobby Mercer, on Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin. We spent so many evenings and afternoons in front of the TV, watching the WPIX broadcast of the games. Phil Rizzuto’s voice was as familiar to us my father’s. We bonded over the game, and that bond stuck even through the requisite mother/daughter turmoil of my teenage years. There were fights, of course: about the music I listened to, the way I dressed, how late I stayed out. But we always came to a truce when it was game time. Occasionally I would watch a game with my father, but he’s a Mets fan and we were more likely to good-naturedly spar than watch a game together. When I had kids of my own, I taught them to be Yankee fans, too. It stuck, for the most part. My son watched games with me when I couldn’t be with my mother. My baseball watching always came with companionship. Baseball always meant the promise of banter, of shared joy or agony.

The sport has taken on a different role for me these days. Instead of looking for someone else in the house to partner my baseball watching, the game itself has become my companion, the commentary a voice in the void created by my husband’s absence – an absence that took some getting used to. At first I felt sorry for myself, despite the fact that what he was doing was integral to his staying sober. This was selfish, I realized. But that realization didn’t keep the stinging loneliness at bay.

As fall settled in, and my seasonal depression with it, I turned to hockey. But the Islanders don’t play every night, and those evenings empty of a distraction were a burden; something I had to bear. I found myself counting the days until spring, until the arrival of baseball, and with it, a game mostly every night. When the season finally arrived, I was ready to be pulled out of the deep depression I’d been living in. I realized I could wallow in the act of being alone every night or I could submerge myself in baseball, view it as a friend, an ally in an otherwise quiet house. It is a one-way sort of friendship, a passive relationship; it gives to me on a constant basis, and all I have to do is watch and cheer and occasionally complain when the Yankees lose.

That baseball fills so much of my life with its noise is important. My husband is a larger-than-life presence. His voice booms, his laughter fills the air. He has a story for every occasion, stories that resonate and command attention, which, I suppose, is what makes him such a sought-after speaker on the AA circuit. I miss that presence in the house every night. I miss just sitting around talking with him. I fully understand the why of his absence, but I don’t have to love it.

Yet, thanks to baseball, I’ve learned to really appreciate the time alone. I can concentrate on the game, rather than just having it on in the background. I take in every sound of the game, every crack of the bat, every ball slamming into a glove. The sounds fill my house, the play-by-play and color voices provide me company. The cadence of the game pulls me in and I forget for a while that I’m alone, that my normal companionship is elsewhere.

***

There were times when my husband would attempt to watch games with me, before AA, before he stopped drinking, before our lives normalized. He’d lie on the couch, asking questions, making comments about the pace of the game, drifting in and out of a hazy sleep while I tried to concentrate. They were hard times then, each day a struggle to exist within the framework we set up for ourselves, with him the drinker, and me the enabler. But through every bad time, through every moment when I thought everything was going to fall apart, there was baseball to transport me to a better place. For a couple of hours each night (more if the Yanks were playing the Red Sox), I could escape. I could be somewhere else. I would shut out everything else and just focus on the game at hand. Baseball was there for me, a friend extending a hand. Through all the attempts at quitting drinking, the seizures, the hospital stays, the detox, I had that one thing to look forward to.

My husband stopped drinking almost three years ago and became part of AA. Things got better. We settled into a healthy routine. Our life now is relatively normal, built around sobriety instead of tempered by drinking. Through that normalized life, I found myself enjoying baseball games on a different level. They stopped being just an escape and started being fun again.

When my husband began the routine of going to meetings every night, I missed him. I missed his now joyful presence, the way his laughter fills the house, the camaraderie we worked to rebuild, all the while knowing that his nightly absence is a necessary part of our lives now. He often pleads with me to go out, to do something while he’s at meetings, maybe go to a movie or dinner with my sister. But I don’t need to. I’m okay. I have my friend — I have baseball.

That I watch games alone now is a positive. Alone but no longer lonely, I get to fully devote myself to the game, to yell about each called strike, to cheer every run, to revel in every victory. I sit on my couch with my dog for company and scroll twitter as I watch the game, tweeting out my joy or displeasure along with the dozens of Yankees fans I follow who provide virtual company as we watch the game together.

***

Baseball is joy. There’s happiness in Tanaka striking out the side or a Sanchez home run or a crisp double play. Baseball is hope; when spring comes around and the season starts anew, you feel like anything is possible. It’s freedom from the doldrums of winter. It’s the promise of summer ahead, of a long season where the impossible can happen. It’s no wonder I turn to baseball to inspire good thoughts. Those feelings of hope, of starting over, they all resonate with me on such a deep level, as if the things evoked by baseball season mirror my life.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

It is Saturday afternoon, and I’m writing this while watching the Yankees take the lead over the Blue Jays. At about 3:00, my husband will walk through the door, back from a meeting that he chairs. He’ll ask about the game, even though he really has no interest in it. He’ll sit on the couch and play with the dog while I watch the rest of the game. He’ll ask questions occasionally, feign interest despite his lack of it, because he knows. He understands what baseball means to me. How it’s become my constant companion in his absence, a presence in my life that while not equal to his, looms nearly as large. And it makes him appreciate the game as much as I do.


writer, civil servant, yankee fan from birth
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CL1NT
4 years ago

Awesome piece! Thanks!

That’s one thing I’ve started doing more of: instead of just having the game on (in the background), I’ve made more of an effort to withdrawal from everything else that I’m doing, and solely focus my attention to the game. It’s amazing how much better the experience is!

Jimmember
4 years ago

Of course, this appears the morning after the Yanks lose 19-3 to the, uh, Red Sox. Very nice article.

Dennis Bedard
4 years ago

Interesting article. Years ago, baseball alone meant listening to Red Sox games on WEAN radio in Providence with a transistor radio under my pillow, then waking up the next morning and reading box scores in the Providence Journal, and perusing The Sporting News once a week and devouring every tidbit of arcane information they published. Now, it consists of watching games on MLB.TV and then waking up and viewing the highlights on the same channel. The old school way was better. Reading and listening left a lot to the imagination that was better than reality. And a correction. It is Bobby Murcer and not Mercer.

odaatschmed77
4 years ago

Michele, thanks for the article. If you look closely at my username you’ll know. The article hit home in so many ways. I love baseball (The crappy Mets) to death. I can watch my team every night and not flinch. Now, I don’t; cuz I have other “stuff” going on in my life BUT I always keep up with it. When my life straightens out in the next few months, I’ll find the Peace & Serenity I need. Additionally, I have hockey (Isles too) and 2020 Mets, :-(. Thanks again for your article, all the best! Eventhough, I don’t like the Yankees, I hate hate hate the Red Sox, Cora whines with the best of them, lol. Take Care

channelclemente
4 years ago

Wonderful homage.

tomscuba2004
4 years ago

Nice piece, thanks Michele. Have a great weekend all.

Mac
4 years ago

Your loneliness and feelings matter. It is not your job to fully shoulder your husband’s burdens, nor is it his job tonsolve your loneliness.

It sounds amazingly hard supporting his disease, and it sounds like he’s done quite well pulling himself out through AA. That struggle affects both of you and your feelings are part of that equation just as much as his.

If you ever want to talk baseball, the internet has some great social forums like SB Nation. Not as good as an know the flesh group, but is a community nonetheless.

Best of luck to your family, and curse you for making me feel empathy toward a Yankees fan; 😉

Johnston
4 years ago

Baseball is also there for a lot of alcoholics who don’t drink any more. It helps with the pain and the cravings.

I’ve been sober for decades – a long, long, long time. I am sorry to tell this to any of you who haven’t quit yet, but, no, it doesn’t get a damned bit easier with time – that’s just a legend, and Day 5000 is just as hard as Day 1 is, and Day 1 is a bitch. When I get up I want a drink; in the morning I want a drink; at lunch I want a drink, and so on until bedtime. There’s a cabinet full of booze in the kitchen. It’s for guests, as I will never take another drink under any conditions. The pain is always there. The craving is always there. But self-control is also there. And so is baseball.

Baseball helps. It helps with it all a lot.

mindofsummer
4 years ago

I love this article. I’ve always been a Dodgers fan, and a casual baseball fan in general, but I started watching every day five years ago when my twin brother died: we shared our love for this team. I live on the East Coast now, so the rest of the family is usually asleep during games, which makes it easier to indulge my baseball life. I’m ready for another classic Dodgers-Yankees fall classic, hopefully this year.