Echoes From The Field
Episode #7 -- Deeper Side

San Diego Padres vs. Toronto Blue Jays Friday, June 18, 2004, 7:05 P.M. Petco Park, San Diego

As Casey McCall said before me: "The storm clouds are gathering."

It's much more a bleaker time than it was twelve days ago when I found my safety, security and renewed inspiration in Adam Eaton's metaphorical embrace. We've lost five straight and dropped from first to third in the division. Just last night, I watched Adam post a third strong outing, only to take the loss because only Sean Burroughs and Mark Loretta could support him. These are trying times.

For me, they are times of philosophical contemplation and emotional ambiguity. One-part familial bond, one-part religion, my affiliation with this team is not to be trifled with, and with that comes a certain degree of blowback: fear, anger, personal responsibility, but mostly sadness. I feel no hostility, no shame. Believing, for me, is just a part of who I am, and I couldn't stop believing unless I stopped living.

It's not so easy for others, though. After two absences, my father is back in the picture -- but for the first time in 18 years, I'm not sure I want him there. As the years go by, his faith has wavered and in turn put mine to the true test. Dangerously close to a burnout in 2002, he now verges on bitterness in 2004. An excerpt from one of our conversations during this dry spell:

Dad: If they lose this game we're going to on Friday, we're going to start booing this team. Me: *You* may. I won't.

It goes without saying that my fear of losing my father's faith after almost two decades has been silently nursed into a personal demon. I know each person's faith in anything, from organized religion to their baseball team, is their own personal thing and I can't really keep it for him. I also know that matching my capacity to Believe, which is grounded in not only fervor but also spirituality and circumstance, would be a fairly uncommon feat. Still, this is the man who brought me here and my one chance to have him in my life, so I would hate to see him falter and fail and have it all fade away.

So I turn to the only people I've dared deify and ask them to right themselves as well as my world. I want to prove my father wrong. I want to escape this last difficult week with a sense of conviction. And if it means I offer myself up, for whatever good the self-sacrifice of a vaguely jaded atheist would do, so be it.

I owe these men my life, anyway.

Tonight's starter is David Wells, meaning that I have missed only Brian Lawrence (and that, Brian, I will rectify soon enough). By all accounts, Boomer's veteran presence has been an aid to my "Disaster Squad," so I owe him one. I'm more than happy to throw my practical magic behind him, especially if he and I can lift my Padres like Adam and I did last time around. Sports karma only extends between me and Adam, however, so listening to the song that reminds me of Mike Darr, I wonder how much good I can do. I have to do something. I can't just let this happen. Not to my boys. Especially not to my boys.

I feel the adrenaline, anticipation mixed with righteous courage and desperation, start to course through my veins. Only these men have ever been able to make me feel them. My body is screaming in their name.

Then mercifully there is soon the blackout of sleep.

I have an interesting dream along the lines of one I've had before. I'm walking around the park and I run into Brian. Before we'd just hung out, talking like old friends. This time we wander the empty concourse and I ask him what went wrong and what I'm supposed to do. He smiles back at me. "You always ask that question," he says, because I do.

I nod. "Since when have you ever expected anything else?"

His next words I've said time and time again myself: "We just go out and play."

It was good advice when Tony Gwynn said it, and it's still good advice when Brian Lawrence says it in my head.

When my eyes open we're in downtown San Diego, just getting onto Ash Street from the 163. Looking straight ahead, I can catch a glimpse of Petco Park. It will never take my breath away as did the introductory view of Qualcomm Stadium before it, but it reminds me why I came, why I'm alive, and what I have to do. By the time we get to the parking lot on Third and Ash, nostalgic music and somber brooding have been replaced by "Running Down A Dream" and an intense conviction to save the day and myself along with it.

My father and I go our separate ways, not for any horrible reason -- he's going to Guest Services to upgrade our seats for the July 9 battle with Colorado, which happens to be my 19th birthday. I've chosen to go on ahead and spend a little time walking the concourse, despite a lack of B-Law to wander with. It'll be good for my head. Zen and the mysticism of Padres baseball.

I make my way down to the Padres Power Alley and whip out my Compadres card, which is kind of like frequent-flyer miles, only more interesting. And sometimes there are surprises.

"Hey, Adam!" I blurt out a few seconds later. As usual, cue wide smile of complete enchantment.

My boy cracks a smile and welcomes me home. Okay, so it's only a pre-record, but of the entire team, what are the odds I would be greeted by The Man in my life? Considering sports karma, pretty damn good, I suppose. Shaking my head, I make my way down the tunnel to my seats. It's go time if it ever was.

Unfortunately, I will not be enough to turn the tide.

The Blue Jays will score twice in the top of the first and add on one more run in the fifth. All the Padres have going for them is The Mark Loretta Show. When no one else can get anything started, "Captain America" shows why he's this month's Tony Gwynn Award winner by launching a solo shot in the bottom of the fourth and going two for four. In fact, until the eighth, he's the entire Padre offense. Sean Burroughs chips in a hit, as does Ramon Hernandez, but it's really too little, too late. With the fall goes my hope and I can hear it all crashing down in my ears like a symphony of broken glass.

In the other universe which exists only in my head and specifically for moments like these, this is where my muse has to hold me in my seat because I want to scream or cry and I don't know which. I'm a poker player, so I'm pretty good at holding my emotions in -- unless it happens to be with my back to the wall and my boys falling farther.

The ninth plays with me just enough to make it hurt even more. Ryan Klesko gets a sacrifice fly that scores the hereto-otherwise-dormant Brian Giles and it's a one-run deficit. Maybe, just maybe, I figure, we might witness the ever so thrilling ninth-inning rally.

Then Miguel Ojeda promptly strikes out swinging and gives me plenty to brood over on the way home.

I sit staring out the window, wondering. I know tomorrow will be a tough day at work based simply on the emotionally draining experience I've just been through. I've failed to confirm anyone's faith and been trapped in a zone of skeptics and non-believers. It seems that I have almost been taken under in a sea of negativity and uncertainty.

Catching my breath, I fill my lungs with fear and exhale.

I've found a reason to dig deep down Instead of wondering what I should do I tried to learn a couple things Everybody always seems so pure Then they show you what their heart stands for You think the world has got your number now You cry about it but you know somehow it's your deeper side -- Hootie and the Blowfish, "Deeper Side"