Dodger Blue

There were few things Joey loved so much as a Dodger Game. Here he is a few years ago on a Dodger night, with part of his second family, Tom and Kevin, with the stadium in panorama behind them.

Joey grew up with the Dodgers. We shared season's tickets with our neighbors, with prime seats behind home plate, so during the season we were at the stadium four or five times a month. We had our food favorites there, our secret spots for parking, and Dodger giveaways filled our kids' rooms. Joey and Jaime had even caught a couple foul balls, and they were proudly and prominently displayed on shelves in our home.

Those warm summer nights, downing mustardy Dodger dogs, cracking peanut shells and dropping them in piles under our feet, watching the jumbo screens and fireworks on the special nights, and cheering on our team...our whole family loved the details and rituals of Dodger night.

Joey also played Little League as a kid and baseball was his favorite team sport. It too became a family pasttime. His dad took him to the batting cages, and I learned how to be the official scorekeeper. I spent many springs and summers at the Little League field, up in the announcer's booth, recording hits, runs and errors for league statistics.

His major league team won the championship three years in a row. Joey played the catcher position, but he would also pitch and play shortstop. We all know how maniacally competitive Little League coaches can be, and he definitely had one of those, but the assistant coach was a gem. He was actually a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times, and he had a knack for writing beautiful and encouraging letters to each player on the team. That's something special a mom remembers.

For many years, Joey breathed baseball. He had an extensive and expensive baseball card collection. His hero was Orel Hershheiser, the incredible Dodger pitcher who was also a committed Christian. The Dodgers were his favorite entertainment, his best night out, and a huge bond with his dad. As he grew up, that passion continued as it connected him to his college friends, who developed their own new rituals for Dodger nights, and with a city that he loved.

In the bottom corner of this picture, I captioned it "The Grand Slam!". That picture was taken so many years ago, I don't even remember the moment now. It obviously was a proud one for all of us. I do know that my kid had fun playing baseball--and that baseball not only shaped his character in a positive way, but it also bonded us as a family.

The night after Joey's L.A. memorial service, we all went to a Dodger game in Joey's honor. Joe somehow got 30 Dodger tickets for $2.00 each off of Craig's List, and between friends, family, and cousins, we used them all. Though I have to say I was barely functioning that night, and I sat there in a fog of unspeakable grief, this night was extremely important to Joe. It had been a father-son ritual for so many years, could it now, really, so suddenly be over? We hadn't yet begun to count the layers of secondary losses, but this was a huge one. In hindsight, I see it as the first of many attempts we've made to bring Joey back to us.

In the picture above, Joe is draped with Joey's favorite shirt--the blue plaid one that shows up in so many of his pictures--and in his bright red Little League All Stars jacket. As we sorted through his belongings, we had found this precious red jacket hanging in his closet, saved from 16 summers prior, meaningful enough to Joey that he had kept it since he was a bat-swinging kid. I never knew till then that it had been among the few personal possessions that he had brought with him when he left home for college at USC, and ended up staying in L.A.

Is there baseball in Heaven? I don't know. You can't stretch scripture to include it, like you can the possibility of dogs in Heaven. It is one of the great experiences of this life that may, or may not, go with us into eternity. I know for us, it was one of the better parts of the world we had built for our children. We miss what it once meant to us. We try to keep the interest alive, but without Joey, it's simply not the same.

The World Series starts soon, and I'm sure we will be watching it, even though this year, it will be without the Dodgers. But worst of all, and the one we will forever be trying to come to terms with, it will be the end of the second baseball season without our beautiful son.

a different kind of night at Dodger Stadium...