Captain Awesome
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Hey everyone, I wanted to share this article with all of you. My local newspaper ran it in today's paper. I'm sharing here with permission. I thought you might appreciate hearing how the national championship connected to my family's story. The link (with paywall) is below as well.
GBO
www.themountainpress.com
It was Bart Giamatti who said that baseball “is designed to break your heart.” If you've been a fan of the game for any period of time, you know how true his statement is. Baseball is a game that so many of us love, but it doesn't always love us back. It often takes more than it gives. Yet, despite the ways the game can be stingy, and often cruel, there are three times in my life it has been unspeakably generous to me, and if you’ll come along for a while, I’d love to tell you my story.
First, you must indulge me for a few moments. I want to talk about two teams that aren't Tennessee, but I promise we'll get back to the Vols very soon. The story started with my grandfather who was a waist gunner on a B-17 in World War II and after he and the greatest generation took care of the Nazis, he went back home to Mississippi and played SEC baseball for Mississippi State. He ended up being a professor of electrical engineering at the same school. He loved baseball, and he shared his love of the game with me. He sent me to numerous baseball camps at MSU when I was a kid, and we spent the rest of our time together playing baseball in the back yard or at parks around Starkville.
His favorite professional team was the Red Sox, so naturally they became mine. The love he had for them started in part because of Ted Williams who put baseball on hold to be a fighter pilot in the same war. Papa was born a few years after the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees; when the curse of the Bambino was in its infancy stage.
Sadly, Papa died of brain cancer in 2004--twenty years ago last month--and never once saw his beloved Red Sox or Mississippi State Bulldogs win their respective World Series. However, just a few weeks after he died, baseball gave me an incredible gift. The Red Sox came back from being down 3-0 to the Yankees in the ALCS--an historic feat that no other team had accomplished. Then the next week, they broke the 86 year curse of the Bambino and won the World Series. It was a wonderful moment and I was shocked at the seemingly coincidental timing. Papa's team breaking the curse and winning the World Series just weeks after he died made it feel like they had done it just for him. It was a once-in-a-lifetime coincidence . . . or so I thought.
Baseball once again gave me an amazing gift just 3 years ago. My grandma, Papa's wife, died in May of 2021. Having lived in Mississippi most of her life, she loved her bulldogs just like Papa did. And, please forgive me but, I do pull for Mississippi State as well. It was hard not to in this family.
When Grandma died, MSU was one of a handful of schools who had never won a national championship in any sport. Even though it had been one of the most successful baseball schools in the country, they never had a championship run. Yet, when Grandma died, the kindness of baseball visited me once again because a few weeks after her death, State wound their way through Regionals, then Supers, then to Omaha, the Finals, and then won the College World Series.
What are the odds? Both teams breaking a decades-long championship drought and doing so immediately after the death of each of my grandparents. The unlikelihood of it all simply stunned me. The chances of it happening have to be astronomical. I was so grateful that baseball had given me this second wonderful gift. It never even crossed my mind that it might happen a third time . . . but it did.
Papa and Grandma had a little girl and named her Linda. That little girl one day became my mom. She followed in her father's footsteps and went to Mississippi State studying music. In fact, she was in the marching band and told me about watching an Ole Miss quarterback named Archie Manning. Little did she know that despite the rivalry she felt with Ole Miss, she would one day grow to absolutely love the son of that quarterback.
After graduating MSU, mom moved to Knoxville to attend Tennessee and get her master’s in music. She was an extremely gifted pianist. The fiftieth anniversary of her master’s recital was a few months ago. She had to play pieces from Bach, Chopin, and others completely from memory for forty minutes. No music allowed.
Mom used her talent at our church where dad pastored and as an elementary music teacher in Kingston. She loved both of her alma maters and supported them in equal measure. Before football season each year, they would have an assembly the day before the first game and mom would lead a few hundred kids in singing Rocky Top.
In addition to doing all of that, she managed to raise three sons, each of whom played baseball in the yard for untold hours amid the sweltering East Tennessee heat. We moved there when I was just two years old, and everything around us was orange. So, of course, my brothers and I grew up loving mom and dad’s alma mater. Each fall Saturday when we visited my grandma we could hear the fireworks every time the Vols scored a touchdown in Neyland. My love for the Vols started early and never waivered.
Mom always had a bad back, so she never really played baseball with us, but she was always watching, sometimes in a lawn chair, sometimes from the kitchen window, sometimes from the large picture window in the living room with a beautiful Tennessee mountain as a backdrop. She was there when I caught my first pop fly. I remember watching her stand and clap and smile as I ran off the field. She came to see me play in high school as well. When pitching, I could always block everything else out, yet mom’s ever encouraging voice always seemed to cut through. She never got to see me play baseball in college though, but that wasn’t her fault. I didn’t play in college. Because, well, let’s just say Tony Vitello would never have come to any of my games back then.
The week of the Vols’ national championship marked the one year anniversary that dad called me and said the doctors had put mom on hospice. Her breast cancer had continued to spread and the treatments were not working. We came in to visit the next week to say goodbye. Knowing how much she loved sports, I asked her to tell my kids one last time the story of winning the state championship in basketball at Starkville High School, which she happily agreed to and regaled five of her grandchildren in rapt attention. Then we prayed and read the Bible and cried. Fifteen days after going on hospice, mom was gone.
It’s hard to be impartial about one’s mom, but I think I can objectively say that mine was special. She was full of joy and life in a way that almost no one else I have ever known has been. At her funeral, the comment I heard over and over was “I’ve never known anyone like her. She was special.” Indeed she was. Charming to the extreme. Kind and forgiving to a fault. Beautiful. A woman I was unworthy to know, let alone to have as my mom. A true kindness from God.
It never really entered my mind that one of my teams would win another championship after she died. I don’t think the thought even crossed my mind until the Super Regionals, and when it did, I immediately dismissed the possibility. It would be too crazy. Three of the most important people in my life pass away and three major baseball championship droughts are ended. Any hope I may have had melted away as the first game against FSU progressed, but then an almost unimaginable comeback transpired. After that, Tennessee refused to quit. They finally made it to game three of the finals and our boys did it.
After Combs’ threw the final strike, I pumped my fist, screamed, and gave high-fives to my wife and kids. After a few moments of exuberance (and frankly, relief), I stood, transfixed at the TV. I was unable to fully absorb all that I was seeing. Don’t ask me how it happened a third time. I have no idea.
As I watched the jubilation unfold, my mind went back to those moments with my mom, seeing her through the chain linked fence while I stood on the little league field, seeing her as I threw the ball with my brothers in the heat of an East Tennessee summer day, seeing her beautiful smile as she watched her boys enjoy a game that she also loved and was now enjoying together with them. It would’ve made me so happy to call after the game and hear her voice pitched just slightly higher than normal, thrilled with emotion, saying “Go Vols!” But my time with her has ended. Yet, through the championship run, I have been able to remember her in ways I would not have been able to otherwise. Baseball has given me a fresh remembrance of her in a way virtually nothing else could.
Perhaps one reason Field of Dreams has resonated with baseball fans for so long is because it uniquely portrays the otherworldliness many of us feel about the game. Let’s be honest though, it’s an unusual movie. Strange dead men step out of a vale of shadows, pass through a field of corn, and step onto a baseball field to play a game. A similar movie would never work for football. It wouldn’t work for basketball. But it works for baseball. Such a seemingly bizarre concept makes perfect sense to baseball fans because they know that through this game they are able to reach out and touch something that is beyond. There is a subtle taste of the ethereal, something we can’t quite put our finger on, that is unspeakable about baseball, that in a small way, breaches part of the chasm between this world and the next. It whispers to us that we were created for something even greater that lies ahead in the future. In a way that almost nothing else can, baseball connects us to those we love who now live on the other side of the corn, those we once connected with so deeply in our love for the game we hold dear. It awakens memory within us that calls forth deep joy and peace and causes us to long for the day when we will rejoin them after completing our journey, walking out into center field, through the stalks, and into the realms of hereafter.
In this world, baseball may very well be designed to break your heart, yet sometimes--on rare occasions--it can take a broken heart and put some of the pieces back together. There is something so beautiful, so good, so right about seeing the glory of our beloved team in a moment of exuberant triumph. As the final strike crossed the plate and the championship run was completed, each one of us burst forth in unbridled joy at the thrill of victory. Some Vol fans might have even dared to ask, “Is
this heaven?” No. It’s Tennessee.
GBO
How baseball and the Vols connect with the life one man
It was Bart Giamatti who said that baseball “is designed to break your heart.” If you’ve been a fan of the game for any period of time, you know how
It was Bart Giamatti who said that baseball “is designed to break your heart.” If you've been a fan of the game for any period of time, you know how true his statement is. Baseball is a game that so many of us love, but it doesn't always love us back. It often takes more than it gives. Yet, despite the ways the game can be stingy, and often cruel, there are three times in my life it has been unspeakably generous to me, and if you’ll come along for a while, I’d love to tell you my story.
First, you must indulge me for a few moments. I want to talk about two teams that aren't Tennessee, but I promise we'll get back to the Vols very soon. The story started with my grandfather who was a waist gunner on a B-17 in World War II and after he and the greatest generation took care of the Nazis, he went back home to Mississippi and played SEC baseball for Mississippi State. He ended up being a professor of electrical engineering at the same school. He loved baseball, and he shared his love of the game with me. He sent me to numerous baseball camps at MSU when I was a kid, and we spent the rest of our time together playing baseball in the back yard or at parks around Starkville.
His favorite professional team was the Red Sox, so naturally they became mine. The love he had for them started in part because of Ted Williams who put baseball on hold to be a fighter pilot in the same war. Papa was born a few years after the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees; when the curse of the Bambino was in its infancy stage.
Sadly, Papa died of brain cancer in 2004--twenty years ago last month--and never once saw his beloved Red Sox or Mississippi State Bulldogs win their respective World Series. However, just a few weeks after he died, baseball gave me an incredible gift. The Red Sox came back from being down 3-0 to the Yankees in the ALCS--an historic feat that no other team had accomplished. Then the next week, they broke the 86 year curse of the Bambino and won the World Series. It was a wonderful moment and I was shocked at the seemingly coincidental timing. Papa's team breaking the curse and winning the World Series just weeks after he died made it feel like they had done it just for him. It was a once-in-a-lifetime coincidence . . . or so I thought.
Baseball once again gave me an amazing gift just 3 years ago. My grandma, Papa's wife, died in May of 2021. Having lived in Mississippi most of her life, she loved her bulldogs just like Papa did. And, please forgive me but, I do pull for Mississippi State as well. It was hard not to in this family.
When Grandma died, MSU was one of a handful of schools who had never won a national championship in any sport. Even though it had been one of the most successful baseball schools in the country, they never had a championship run. Yet, when Grandma died, the kindness of baseball visited me once again because a few weeks after her death, State wound their way through Regionals, then Supers, then to Omaha, the Finals, and then won the College World Series.
What are the odds? Both teams breaking a decades-long championship drought and doing so immediately after the death of each of my grandparents. The unlikelihood of it all simply stunned me. The chances of it happening have to be astronomical. I was so grateful that baseball had given me this second wonderful gift. It never even crossed my mind that it might happen a third time . . . but it did.
Papa and Grandma had a little girl and named her Linda. That little girl one day became my mom. She followed in her father's footsteps and went to Mississippi State studying music. In fact, she was in the marching band and told me about watching an Ole Miss quarterback named Archie Manning. Little did she know that despite the rivalry she felt with Ole Miss, she would one day grow to absolutely love the son of that quarterback.
After graduating MSU, mom moved to Knoxville to attend Tennessee and get her master’s in music. She was an extremely gifted pianist. The fiftieth anniversary of her master’s recital was a few months ago. She had to play pieces from Bach, Chopin, and others completely from memory for forty minutes. No music allowed.
Mom used her talent at our church where dad pastored and as an elementary music teacher in Kingston. She loved both of her alma maters and supported them in equal measure. Before football season each year, they would have an assembly the day before the first game and mom would lead a few hundred kids in singing Rocky Top.
In addition to doing all of that, she managed to raise three sons, each of whom played baseball in the yard for untold hours amid the sweltering East Tennessee heat. We moved there when I was just two years old, and everything around us was orange. So, of course, my brothers and I grew up loving mom and dad’s alma mater. Each fall Saturday when we visited my grandma we could hear the fireworks every time the Vols scored a touchdown in Neyland. My love for the Vols started early and never waivered.
Mom always had a bad back, so she never really played baseball with us, but she was always watching, sometimes in a lawn chair, sometimes from the kitchen window, sometimes from the large picture window in the living room with a beautiful Tennessee mountain as a backdrop. She was there when I caught my first pop fly. I remember watching her stand and clap and smile as I ran off the field. She came to see me play in high school as well. When pitching, I could always block everything else out, yet mom’s ever encouraging voice always seemed to cut through. She never got to see me play baseball in college though, but that wasn’t her fault. I didn’t play in college. Because, well, let’s just say Tony Vitello would never have come to any of my games back then.
The week of the Vols’ national championship marked the one year anniversary that dad called me and said the doctors had put mom on hospice. Her breast cancer had continued to spread and the treatments were not working. We came in to visit the next week to say goodbye. Knowing how much she loved sports, I asked her to tell my kids one last time the story of winning the state championship in basketball at Starkville High School, which she happily agreed to and regaled five of her grandchildren in rapt attention. Then we prayed and read the Bible and cried. Fifteen days after going on hospice, mom was gone.
It’s hard to be impartial about one’s mom, but I think I can objectively say that mine was special. She was full of joy and life in a way that almost no one else I have ever known has been. At her funeral, the comment I heard over and over was “I’ve never known anyone like her. She was special.” Indeed she was. Charming to the extreme. Kind and forgiving to a fault. Beautiful. A woman I was unworthy to know, let alone to have as my mom. A true kindness from God.
It never really entered my mind that one of my teams would win another championship after she died. I don’t think the thought even crossed my mind until the Super Regionals, and when it did, I immediately dismissed the possibility. It would be too crazy. Three of the most important people in my life pass away and three major baseball championship droughts are ended. Any hope I may have had melted away as the first game against FSU progressed, but then an almost unimaginable comeback transpired. After that, Tennessee refused to quit. They finally made it to game three of the finals and our boys did it.
After Combs’ threw the final strike, I pumped my fist, screamed, and gave high-fives to my wife and kids. After a few moments of exuberance (and frankly, relief), I stood, transfixed at the TV. I was unable to fully absorb all that I was seeing. Don’t ask me how it happened a third time. I have no idea.
As I watched the jubilation unfold, my mind went back to those moments with my mom, seeing her through the chain linked fence while I stood on the little league field, seeing her as I threw the ball with my brothers in the heat of an East Tennessee summer day, seeing her beautiful smile as she watched her boys enjoy a game that she also loved and was now enjoying together with them. It would’ve made me so happy to call after the game and hear her voice pitched just slightly higher than normal, thrilled with emotion, saying “Go Vols!” But my time with her has ended. Yet, through the championship run, I have been able to remember her in ways I would not have been able to otherwise. Baseball has given me a fresh remembrance of her in a way virtually nothing else could.
Perhaps one reason Field of Dreams has resonated with baseball fans for so long is because it uniquely portrays the otherworldliness many of us feel about the game. Let’s be honest though, it’s an unusual movie. Strange dead men step out of a vale of shadows, pass through a field of corn, and step onto a baseball field to play a game. A similar movie would never work for football. It wouldn’t work for basketball. But it works for baseball. Such a seemingly bizarre concept makes perfect sense to baseball fans because they know that through this game they are able to reach out and touch something that is beyond. There is a subtle taste of the ethereal, something we can’t quite put our finger on, that is unspeakable about baseball, that in a small way, breaches part of the chasm between this world and the next. It whispers to us that we were created for something even greater that lies ahead in the future. In a way that almost nothing else can, baseball connects us to those we love who now live on the other side of the corn, those we once connected with so deeply in our love for the game we hold dear. It awakens memory within us that calls forth deep joy and peace and causes us to long for the day when we will rejoin them after completing our journey, walking out into center field, through the stalks, and into the realms of hereafter.
In this world, baseball may very well be designed to break your heart, yet sometimes--on rare occasions--it can take a broken heart and put some of the pieces back together. There is something so beautiful, so good, so right about seeing the glory of our beloved team in a moment of exuberant triumph. As the final strike crossed the plate and the championship run was completed, each one of us burst forth in unbridled joy at the thrill of victory. Some Vol fans might have even dared to ask, “Is
this heaven?” No. It’s Tennessee.
️
