Filling the Void

It’s interesting this feeling of emptiness I am experiencing. It’s kind of like my best friend left town but I can’t call her. It’s a little like I have moved to a new place and I don’t know anyone and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. But more than anything it feels a little like someone died, like there is a void in my heart that was once filled.

 

I know some of you may think that sounds silly, kind of crazy that a sport can take on this life of its own but it does, and it did and it has left a big space in my heart. That space was filled with cool Friday nights that I anticipated from my desk all week, living for the smell of the freshly mowed grass and the pop corn that Mr. Norm had ready for my Friday night ‘happy hour’. The space in my heart was filled with Sunday mornings after church standing and hearing the National Anthem being belted out by little Caroline Rhett and feeling spiritual all over again only this time worshipping a ‘different’ god. This hole in my heart was filled with a multitude of people, some more dysfunctional than others, but all part of my baseball family. I loved all these things about baseball but none more than I loved the players. Each with their idiosyncrasies and their dances at the plate, some looking like baseball models while others looked dirty and wore torn pants with pride. Oh, those boys of summer, how I loved them all.

 

Before I leave you completely I want to share with you something I received this week because I think we can all learn from it. Someone I really don’t know well came up to me at one of the games and gave me a note (to be read later). I truly thought the note would be about having enjoyed watching my son play ball but it was far different. The note was about watching ‘me as a fan’ and what she had learned from it. Who knew? But now I know from this beautiful letter, so eloquently written, that I touched this young woman’s heart and helped her better understand baseball and players. So from this we can learn two things; we should always behave like someone is watching because truly we never know when we are being used as their example, and we should always send notes like these because honestly it was one of the best ‘thank you’ notes I have ever received. I felt validation for every night I stayed up way past my bedtime editing and posting photos or writing blogs.

I have loved my baseball life and feel very blessed by all it has given me and want to thank each of you for the moments you have taken out of your life, to watch a game, or read my blog, or look at my photo journals so you too could experience one of the best moments in life and also love these boys of summer.

Now forgive me if I don’t come out to play for a day or two as I mull this over and relive a few moments in my mind and try to figure out how I am going to fill this hole in my heart.

Hopefully. Next season. I will see you at the field.

Trudy



Leave the Lights on for Me

I spent many years at Sloan Baseball Field when Cole was growing up. It’s a baseball complex in Mount Pleasant that takes young boys from their first games up through their 12 year old leagues. I would arrive at the field early, run the concession stand and was often the last to leave. I liked nothing better than to be the first to get there and stand behind the home plate fence and look at the beautiful field and feel the energy as the place came to life. There was a time when I thought I wanted my ashes spread there when I left this world.

Then Cole moved on and so did I until finally we both arrived at Patriot’s Point, the home of Cougar Baseball. It seems impossible to believe that my son started 201 games on that field, that he grew from a boy to a man and that today I left the stadium for the last time as a College of Charleston baseball player’s mom. I’m sure I’ll be back, I love baseball too much but it will be different. It’s funny how you can come to love a place and how it feels like it is yours after a while. How you sit in a seat so long that when someone else sits in it you get a little offended because they don’t understand that it ‘belongs to you’. Many times I took mental attendance by glancing through the stadium at the regulars and if their seat was empty I’d automatically assume they weren’t at the game not that they had moved to escape the sun. It becomes a habit, a part of who you are when you spend four years on the same field. It’s like a coming home when you drive over the Ravenel Bridge and see the field lights on, kind of like the porch light on a dark night. It feels good.

I would be lying if I said I’m glad it is over because I’m not but I will say I’m glad I got to call this place home. I’ve always been proud to say my son played for the College of Charleston but I guess it is time to give my seat to another fan. I hope they love it as much as I have. I hope they smile and talk to Norm and Timothy every day on their way into the stadium. I hope they tell Milton that the grass is beautiful and I hope they are kind to Miss Audra when she has to enforce the ticket sign in, because even though I may be moving on it feels like I’m leaving some of my family behind.

So tonight Patriots Point I bid you farewell and thank you for the joy you have brought to my life and for the way you embraced my son. You have been good to me and I have grown to love you.

I will definitely be back so please leave the lights on for me.

See you at the field.

Tomorrow we head to Birmingham for our last regular season play, then on to the Southern Conference tournament. I know the ride is almost over and I know I’ve said it before but indulge me one more time, “it’s been a great one”.

I’m a Mother, Then a Fan

I know what it feels like to be the mother of the pitcher when things begin to fall apart.  I have experienced the lump in my throat when my son was on the mound left to dig himself out of a hole, when the stadium was not big enough to get away from the fans taunting and criticizing, when all you want to do is sit alone and every man who has ever played an inning of the game wants to sit beside you and tell you what your son is doing wrong. That’s why it was hard for me to feel victorious when we got the win last Sunday against Furman.  It was too painful to watch their closer in silent desperation load the bases with walks and then give up the runs to lose the game.  Did we really win it or did he lose it?  I guess I’ll always be a mother first and a fan second because there was certainly no doubt in Cole’s mind (when I later posed the question to him) who ‘WON’ the game. I remember when one of our coaches said ‘the baseball players with the shortest memories are the most successful’.  But really, do they ever forget?  Do they ever ‘close the playbook’?  I don’t think so because I’ve heard too many play by play accounts of games long since recorded in the archives recounted like the players just left the field.  Coaches remember for years what a 12 year old did in the state tournament long after the kid graduates from high school and goes on to play college ball.  It fascinates me because Ted will recall something and I can barely differentiate between the schools much less which kid played short or second (for the opposing team). I guess I’m really not such a great ‘fan’ after all because I’m pretty sure if I was a true fan I would remember those things.

We followed the team up to North Carolina a couple of weeks ago and my true character was revealed. I apologize if you witnessed behavior that was a little uncharacteristic of me but that’s why I now know that I am a mother first and a fan second.  Because, you see, there was a group of drunk hecklers at our game (long since graduated from college) who took their taunting a little too far for a mother.  It became very personal and ugly and had if I been just a fan I would have been able to laugh it off or ignore it but I couldn’t, it was too hurtful.  So, adrenaline pumping, I decided I would have a few words with the leader of the pack.  Now the only thing that could ever explain why some crazy white haired woman would think to do something like this has to be because the adrenaline has rushed to her brain and now she has become some Grizzly Bear Mother and truly feeling a little invincible (or crazy as I said before).  Needless to say, things didn’t go well and I didn’t make much progress on teaching the young drunk the proper etiquette of the ‘Southern Conference fan’.  But I did walk away knowing a little more about myself.  I’m not going to run from a fight and I felt like the fight I was in was for ‘my team’, my boys, if you will.  I felt like it was my job to protect them and be their mom because their mom wasn’t available.  They probably didn’t even know what those drunks were saying but I did and I wanted their dignity upheld. So herein lies my revelation, my AHA Moment as Oprah would say.  I’m not ‘really’ a fan; I’m just a mom who loves baseball and her team.  I’m not a great student of the game; or scorebook keeper, statistician, or rule enforcer; I am just a mom who loves baseball and her team.  And I guess that is who I will always be because you would have thought I would have ‘grown my game’ by this point in my fan career but I haven’t. But you know what, I’m ok with it.  It’s ok that I still don’t see the balk clearly unless it is a very obvious one, its ok that I’m really not absolutely certain you can start a pitcher, take him out and then bring him back in as a DH.  It’s ok because it IS who I am and I still love the game just as much as anyone else, and truly no one understood the feeling Coach Heath was experiencing at the USC game better than I did (when he got ejected) because the way he looked when his head was about to spin off his body was exactly the way I felt in Elon.

Passion is a good thing.

I love baseball and I love my team.

See you at the field.

Road Trips, Rock and Roll and Karma

Sometimes I hold my breath at the ballgame. It isn’t an intentional thing like we did when we were kids to see who could do it the longest. It is a kind of gasping ‘afraid to exhale’ kind of thing until I see the end result and only then am I allowed to breath. I do it when Ryan Daniels is about to run out of the batter’s box. I have full confidence he can hit the ball, it’s the running I struggle with. I hold my breath until he reaches first and pray to God he doesn’t make the turn because I might black out before he makes it to second. And then, God forbid, if he does what he did last week and actually slides into second I almost have to call EMS for the mask. I also hold my breath when there is a long fly ball to left or right center, in the split moment when Cole gets a bead on it and bolts into action like a wild horse getting to it before it drops, once the ball is safely in his glove I exhale. Now I have started holding my breath when Aldrich bats because I expect it to go over the wall almost every time so I don’t get to breathe until it does. This Saturday I was holding my breath a lot, for different reasons. Tensions were high, players were yelling at players, umpires were yelling at coaches, coaches were yelling at players and at one point I found myself firmly planted between two Davidson men who decided they were going to stand right next to our dugout out yelling for their players and against ours. For the most part, I keep my redneck tendencies in check but when it gets personal about our boys I tend to get a little personal also. I really didn’t have to do much, just plant myself right between them and bring out my Tennessee State Awarded cheerleading voice and those loyal fans disbursed within minutes. It’s nice to be Southern where we do things with good taste and decorum but let the record show if that hadn’t worked I had the redneck plan in my pocket.

I know I wrote a blog last year about the “players being bigger than the mojo” but I guess I will have to retract that one after this weekend. As I implied we did not have our best game on Saturday, some might say the wheels fell off the bus. The loss wasn’t huge but I am pretty sure the loss was not made in such a way the coaches and players could accept. If everyone plays their best game and gets beat you can say they were just better than us but we all knew this was not the case.

One of our best hitters (who will remain nameless) let it be known that he had done a poor job tipping his waitress after breakfast Saturday morning because he only had one dollar left over. His five dining partner jokingly gave him a hard time about how karma was going to come back on him and he should have tipped that girl better. Well he didn’t think much more of it until he got to the field and went one, two, three, four, at bats with no hits. This NEVER happens to this kid. He was sure without a doubt Karma had worked its’ horrible magic and that’s why he didn’t get a hit. When we arrived back at the hotel after dinner there he stood in the parking lot, all cleaned up, after he had walked back to the breakfast restaurant to explain to the waitress why he hadn’t left her a tip earlier and that he now was making it up to her with $5.00 instead of $2.00. He was very sincere when he explained to me that he was getting his good karma back. I know he had some questions when he went hitless his first two at bats (and I’m going to admit I held my breath until he finally connected). So for those players who may possibly be in a slump right now here is another player’s advise – tip your waitress- and tip her well. Hey who am I to question the karma! I’m going to start tipping better and see if that helps Cole.



I just want to say a little something about road trips. Sometimes they can be really hard on you but I profess to be the Queen of the Road trip (self appointed title of course) and thought I might share with you a few things that can make or break a trip. (Since we have Alabama looming ahead).

1. Don’t allow any whiners in the car. If you have a whiner that you cannot leave at home then they must develop a very bad cough upon entering the car to which any good mother should immediately administer the maximum amount of Nyquil allowable. Hilary was not the best car traveler and she was in her 20’s before she figured out that Nyquil wasn’t a preventative for car sickness. Ahh, such peaceful trips we had with that fiery redhead.

2. You must bring your own food and it must be high quality and not have any gaseous creating ingredients. There is nothing worse than being trapped in a car with someone having a gaseous ‘event’. Never a good thing.

3. This is the most important of ALL-you must have good music. Absolutely the most important part of the trip. Pandora has changed our lives in the car. We are blessed in that both Ted and I are old Rock & Rollers and doubly blessed that we can find all our favorite music on Pandora. So now we are ‘rocking’ down the highway and singing the songs (when we remember the lyrics) and loving our life.

I hope you have taken away some valuable lessons from this week’s blog:

1. Don’t hold your breath too long or you’ll black out and miss the next play

2. Tip your waitress WELL

3. And make the road trip the best ever with the right music, people, and food and you too will love every baseball trip.

See you at the field.

Next Game is Wednesday, March 16th at 5:00.

Trudy

Seven Wins Isn’t a Season But it is a Great Start

We have seven games under our belt and seven W’s on the scorecard. No one else in the Southern Conference can say that at the moment but I have watched enough baseball to know that everything can change in one weekend. We had so much preseason hype that I was getting worried about the start. I’m not saying we don’t deserve it or that I don’t believe it I’m just saying I was ready for those boys to get the show on the road. When Cole was named preseason Southern Conference Player of the Year I was so proud I thought I was going to explode and the day after the paper published I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It was time to start proving what we could do and you know what they say in golf it’s not about how you arrive but how you finish that matters and I just knew that was exactly what my son was thinking. Then we started and we came out of the shoot strong. I am seeing folks at the ball field that I haven’t seen in years. We have sold more season tickets than ever. Our right field enthusiasm is at an all time high on Friday nights. So someone else is believing the preseason hype and I’m glad!

I’m going to guess if you read this blog then you have an interest in CofC baseball so there are a couple of things I want to share with you. I had a conversation with a player this past weekend who told me he had never used his family passes because his family isn’t able to come (I’ve watched him for three years now). They live pretty far away and the travel is tough and expensive. I told him we were his family and that we were extremely proud of him, truthfully my heart ached a little after that conversation. Then I watched Ryan Daniels bat and remembered our first game last season when he broke his leg during the pregame warm ups. He’s back out there with a ruptured disc in his back and he hit a double. Who does that? Who has that much desire and drive to play through the pain just for an at bat? I want what he has! I want to love my job so much that there is nothing that will stand in my way, physically or mentally. I want to know what it feels like to be our right fielder, who, some might say was born with a handicap but who many believe will be an All American if he stays on the path he is on right now. I want to know how Jamie Holler and Rob Kral played the last season with major injuries, had surgeries and are back out there when most people would still be in rehab. You can’t teach this; this heart, this desire, this love of the game. This is the stuff of greatness. They don’t do this because of who is watching or because someone tells them to, they do it because it IS who they are. It’s in their DNA. They are winners and they won’t let anything stand in the way of that. So I’ll be out there again this season at every game because I believe in them. I’ll be their family, I’ll be their greatest fan, and they will all be my heroes.

We go to Jacksonville tomorrow then we have Coastal on Wednesday. This is a big week. Come out to Patriots Point and meet my heroes.



See you at the field,

Trudy

My Bittersweet Preseason

I’ve been thinking a lot about baseball this ‘preseason’. It’s weird because usually when Cole isn’t playing ball I don’t think about it much. I’m pretty busy taking care of all the projects I can complete in the ‘off season’.

This year has been an exception. It seems like I think about it A LOT; this final season, this senior year, this end of the big show in our little world. We moved this fall and while Cole will probably never really ‘live’ in our new house I couldn’t resist setting up his room again just as it has been for years. The walls are heavy with awards and plaques and all the dressers are covered in trophies. I lovingly unpacked the memories and thought about each award as I found a place for it, remembering where we were and the games leading up to the big event. There is a decade of memories in that room but there are so many more that weren’t engraved on a plaque but in our hearts and our minds and will be for years to come.

Last night we went to the College of Charleston basketball game and there on the jumbo-tron at half time flashed a picture of three of our baseball players (including my son) with an advertisement for the upcoming season. I’m not gonna lie, I almost cried. There they were, Matt Leeds, Rob Kral and Cole looking all serious and mean and I had to reflect on the differences from the first time I met them four years ago.

I ran into people at the game who stopped me to talk about this, the ‘last season’. How was Cole feeling about it, what were his plans after the season, what is his take on the team this year. First I need to say that if you know Cole well you know that these are all things he doesn’t talk about outside the team much. He’ll give you a one liner which usually contains the word fine but that’s about it. What I really wanted to say to those folks is this is so much more than a 2011 CofC Baseball Season. It is so much more than a senior year. We started traveling with this kid when he was eleven years old, as did most of the parents of players who play at this level. We have lived in hotel rooms and condos every spring and summer for the last ten years. We have rolled in to the driveway after midnight only to get up at 6:00 AM to go to work the next day more times than we can count and we wouldn’t trade a single dollar or moment we have sacrificed to live this life. So when you ask me how Cole feels about this possibly being his last season forgive me if I get a little teary eyed because it’s my last season too. One thing I know for sure is that you only get one shot to live in the moment. You get one chance to see the ball come off the bat for the winning hit, that drove in the go ahead run, at a midweek game, in the rain close to midnight and in that moment you get to see the bench clear and run to second base to lift up that freshman who made it happen (who happens to be your kid). We live our whole lives for moments like that. So, while this preseason is a little bitter sweet I know that at the end of the season (and I hope it is in Omaha) I will be sad that it is over but so glad I stayed for the ‘whole game’. If my son is fortunate enough to play one inning on another level I hope it is close enough for us to see that game too but at least I know I had one REALLY GOOD SEASON and I gave it all I had without any regrets.

See ya at the field.

Trudy

First game is Friday, February 18th

All Seasons Must End

I have started writing this blog three times. It’s hard; I have a lot to say. My mind is spinning with emotional words, my heart aches, my fingers fly across the keyboard and then I hit delete wiping out an entire paragraph of what seems insignificant when it is committed to paper. The truth is I wasn’t ready, I didn’t prepare myself, I wasn’t finished and yet I have to accept that I saw some folks who meant A LOT to me for the very last time yesterday. There are young men that I have spent the last few years with that hopefully I will be able to follow through facebook or on the internet. But I know there will be some that will drop off my communication line and I will wonder about them as time goes by and I will never really know how their lives turned out. I can only say that the games this weekend made them better men. They will make decisions based on strength they know they have because they had to dig deep, they will not feel defeated because they know what it feels like to rally back time and again, they will have confidence because they have experienced losing a game when they were truly winners and they knew it.

I can’t begin to recap the emotional ebbs and tides we felt at the games. There is no way to illustrate on paper what we saw but I know this, I witnessed one of the best games in baseball history yesterday.

Now indulge me as I write an open letter to my son (and I suggest you do the same for your son if you are lucky enough to have one on this team). I’m not sure he will ever read it but someone who reads this will tell him that on the weekend of June 5th, 2010 I have never been prouder of him and probably not for the reasons you think.

Cole,

It’s hard to know what goes on in that head of yours sometimes because you are such a silent warrior. I wish I could live there, in your brain, for one game and know what you know and how you raise yourself to the level of competition that I have never experienced. I wish I could feel what you feel one time when you come across the plate knowing that you have brought your team closer to yet another victory. This weekend I wonder if you saw the tournament slipping through the team’s hands as you grabbed your teammate and held him back when I know you yourself probably wanted to charge the other team. I wonder if you felt like you had to personally stop the outrage so we could continue the charge. I was so proud of you in that moment. Certainly people would have understood if our team had left the dugout but nothing would have been gained and you clearly knew that. And when you hit the second home run on Sunday and started around the bases there was no big celebration or showboating, you merely took the bases, held up one finger and continued your pursuit of the victory. Then the game was over and we had clearly been robbed, the team did not want to leave the dugout and shake the other team’s hand but you lead the march. The newspaper asked you today what you thought of your performance and you replied that you would have gladly gone 0-5 with 5 strike outs for the win. Oh Cole, what a man you were this weekend! I have never been so proud of you.


Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful ride.


I love and respect you more than you will ever know.


Mom