5/18/26 — White Sox vs Mariners
Initially I had tickets to the game against the White Sox on May 19, the closest game to Leo’s birthday where he wouldn’t miss school. After we got his coach pitch schedule, we had to get tickets for Monday, May 18 instead. Then I remembered that my parents flew in that afternoon, right before the game started.
After watching a good bit of baseball last weekend, when the M’s got swept by the Padres, we decided to take it easy on baseball today and focus our energy on my parents instead.
While Nadia put the kids to bed, I drove with my dad to pick up the minivan we rented from the airport. On the way, I thought about tuning into the game; instead I put on the new Broken Social Scene and began talking about writing with my dad. Though retired, he had been working on a sermon about the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’s garment to be healed. He casually mentioned that this happened on Jesus’s way to raise a girl from death. I laughed. I’d always known the garment story; completely forgot about resurrecting.
After getting the rental, I drove the minivan home while my dad took my car, playing the radio broadcast of the game on my phone. Rick Rizz, who was retiring after this season, called the game. Mariners were up 3 to 1. Ferrer was working his way out of a jam. A strikeout, a broken bat scattering shards of wood all over the batter’s box, a ground ball hit back to the mound, an underhand flip to first base.
As I entered my neighborhood, the Mariners started getting runners on bases. The parking on my street was a bit of a nightmare on any random weeknight, so I took in most of the bottom of the eighth. Naylor hits a line drive single. Canzone walks. Raley strikes out. I finally found a spot on a street a few blocks down from us. I pulled up onto the curb—everyone had decided the sidewalk of this alley-looking street was now parking—just as Young flies out.
I turned off the van and looked around the slightly unfamiliar street before walking back home. That parking spot should be okay, I thought. A dog barked as I admired a tree arching over the fence of someone’s front yard. I had almost forgotten about the potential Mariners rally until I heard the game from a neighbor’s open window. I put the radio back on my phone as I walked down my driveway.
Colt Emerson walked up to the plate with two outs. He had just been called up yesterday against the Padres. Leo and I had watched his first at bat on my phone as I was buckling Nina into the car—a hard lineout. He was still looking for his first hit as he battled through a few pitches.
As I greeted my parents, Leo came down the stairs in his PJs to say goodnight. He heard the game on my phone and asked who was batting. Colt Emerson; two runners on. His eyebrows raised. He asked what the score was. I checked, 6 to 1. Confused for a moment, I forgot I had paused the broadcast when I turned off the car.
Suddenly, Emerson smacks a 2–2 changeup that pulls down the right field line, barreling just over the fence. Leo and I smile and high-five as the roar of the crowd at T-Mobile Park spills out of my phone. “Oh my goodness,” exclaims Rizz. “I think his mom and dad were about ready to explode.”
Final: Mariners 6, White Sox 1
Seats: Minivan
Memory: Jesus curing death, preparing for a trip with my parents