Recently, my wife, Laura, got a call from the United States Supreme Court, from the office of Chief Justice John Roberts himself. Laura is a judge, so it’s not a huge leap to think another judge might call her—but Chief Justice Roberts? I quickly understood this was not an everyday event. As my wife reminded me, there are only nine justices of the Supreme Court in the United States and only one chief justice. It turned out we were being invited to a musical celebration. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg plans the event annually and Chief Justice Roberts has a surprise for her every year. This year, the surprise was me.
Justice Ginsburg has been an opera fan since she was eleven years old, so appropriately enough, that night two opera singers had been invited to perform. Once they were done, Justice Roberts gave his closing remarks. His theme was substitution because the singers this year were replacements for a couple of performers who couldn’t make it, and in talking about what it meant to substitute for someone, Justice Roberts told the story of Wally Pipp and Lou Gehrig. By now you know who Wally Pipp was, but when Chief Justice Roberts asked the assembled crowd if anyone knew of Pipp, only a few hands where raised. He said that this was a story of substitution. But, as he pointed out, it is also a story about showing up. He told the crowd that Gehrig’s record was said to be unbreakable but that unbreakable record was broken by the man who had become known as the Ironman of Baseball, Cal Ripken. He explained that the Supreme Court had an Ironwoman, who like the Ironman, showed up every day through illness and injury. Justice Ginsburg, at eighty-five, was recovering from broken ribs and still working. Justice Roberts said he thought it only appropriate that the Ironwoman of the Supreme Court meet the Ironman of Baseball. As heads turned in surprise, I walked up to very gently hug a woman who has showed up every day and like a good teammate made the other eight justices better by her presence.
That night, I got to meet Justice Roberts and Justice Ginsburg and we talked for a while about just showing up. I couldn’t help but think of my dad, all the things he’d taught me, and how proud he’d be if he could see me chatting with the greatest legal minds of my generation. It was a long way from being expected to clear the snow off the entire sidewalk, from tales of Brooks Robinson or the minor leagues, and from the first game of the streak, or the last, but in fact, it was all the same thing: we showed up. Ruth Bader Ginsburg shows up. We do our best, we hope we’ve done the right thing, and then the next day, we show up again, ready to hit a baseball, or make a ruling, or raise a kid, or be kind to the person serving us in a store.
We only get a few innings on this planet, after all. May as well show up, ready to play, for every one.