As most of you know, it’s presently November in Toronto.
Late November.
Not much light is getting into this day. It’s grim and colourless, and the wind, which is whipping angry, little flecks of the city all over the place, is literally howling. They say it feels like minus ten out, but I think it feels a lot worse than that, it feels like, I don’t know, Tuberculosis, or something.
With that in mind, I’ve opted to stay indoors, and am now reclining on the bed with my dog and a heating pad, watching the White Sox and Royals. They’re not my favourite teams, but who cares? It’s sunny and green where they are, and that’s good enough for me.
As inconceivable as this is to most people who know me now, I was actually decent at sports when I was younger. I was good at baseball, and could catch anything. As a result of this, my coach used to maneuver the 11 year-old version of me around the field from batter to batter, positioning me wherever he thought the ball was going to be hit.
Michael Kirby, the other team’s slugger was at bat and my coach moved me out to left field. Kirby crushed the ball, and as soon as he hit it, I took off at a dead run. Just as the ball was about to fall into the gap and roll all the way up to Hemlock Road, I dove and caught it. This might have been my single greatest moment in sports.
At any rate, the most beautiful thing about it, as I rolled on the grass and popped up with the ball, was seeing all of the adults, leaping off the bench like exclamation points, cheering, just like in the movies. I felt like a hero, and still vividly recall that moment 30 years later.
Of course, they weren’t really applauding for me, but for all of us. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing to watch children play. They gather the world and then return it to the rest of us, amplified, and that is something worth standing up and applauding for.