Dear Bryan,
It’s worth noting that, from the get-go, before we’ve met, before I even have any assurance that you will someday exist, I’m a little concerned that I’m not going to have anything to talk to you about. We are, by nature, by design, at a distance from each other. To everyone else on Earth, I’m just a regular fellow walking around, trying to figure out what’s what, trying to make sense of a chaotic, confusing, anarchic planet.
To you, though, I am Dad, an omnipotent, oppressive presence, someone to pattern yourself after, someone to secretly resent, someone to advise you, someone to doggedly resist. Every step you take in life will somehow be guided by me. I apologize in advance. That’s just the way it is. I don’t make the rules.
It’ll be difficult for us to find common ground. We’re both guys, and talking is not our strong suit, not to each other: Heart-to-hearts with your father, I’m afraid, are not in the Leitch family DNA. That’s not the way it works here. Sorry.
But that’s OK, because we’ll communicate and bond the way fathers and sons have throughout the generations. We’ll talk about baseball.
Baseball’s the one language, you see, I know I’ll be able to use with you. When everything is blocked, when you want to punch me in the face, when you are suffering but can’t say it, when you’re joyous but are too embarrassed to show me just how much . . . we’ll be able to talk about baseball. It’s what I talked about with my dad, what he talked about with his dad, what millions of dads and kids have talked about for a century. I think this is why baseball exists.
I think this is why it was given to us.
By the time you see this, baseball will be dramatically different than it is now, just like it’s different now than when my father was my age, and so on. But it’s the same, really. Ninety feet between each base, three outs, nine innings, no clock. It’s important that you want to talk about baseball with me. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to talk about anything else, not for a while. The game is the one constant we’re always going to have. You might be able to tell by all the Cardinals wallpaper in your room, I’m sort of counting on it.
In September 2008, your grandfather and I, along with my friend Mike, a recent father himself, went to Wrigley Field in Chicago to watch our beloved St. Louis Cardinals play the hated Chicago Cubs. This book is about that game, and about baseball, and about dads, and about how, deep down, those three sacraments are all pretty much the same thing.
I don’t know how good a dad I’m going to be, if you do end up existing. I’ve lived a selfish life, driven by my own ambitions and fears and insecurities and a whole score of demons and gumdrops that have nothing to do with you. I’ve been waiting a long time. I’m writing this to see if I can do it.
But mostly: I just want you to know what baseball was like in 2008, and how important it was, and can still be.
Don’t worry, though! This won’t just be some endless self-indulgent dirge. First: It has to end. It’s a book! Second: To make it easier on you, and keep you playing along, I’ve ended each chapter with notes on Things You Have Learned. Think of this like a workbook, the kind you’ll have in school, except with less space to doodle in the margins.
So anyway, let’s go on in. Now that I’ve given you the primer on What This All Means, and Why This Is Important, I’d like you to forget all of it. Because we are solid Leitch men, and we will never discuss it again.
Best,
Your Dad
P.S. In case you are never born, please give this book to your sister.