Play Ball!!!

Hi Everyone!! WOW!!!

As I wrote in a recent blog, I was lucky enough to go to the first game of the baseball playoffs with my youngest son, and I had a terrific time!! Immediately after, I came back to Paris and kept track of how they were doing in each subsequent game, thrilled as the tension mounted, and they won the games they needed to, to head for the World Series. For the first games of the playoffs, I was satisfied to get the results from a friend the next day. But the last two games were just too important, and I had asked the friend who was emailing me the scores to keep me posted through the evening. With the time difference, the games were being played between 2 and 6 am in France. And thinking of my son, and how excited I knew he’d be, during the last two games, I just couldn’t sleep, or finally, even stay in bed. During the next to last game, I would go to bed, hear my email bell ding a few minutes later, and get back up to go to the kitchen, check my computer and see the score, and finally I didn’t even try to sleep and waited for the final results after 5 am. It was incredibly exciting, and with the win in that game, the final game became all-important, and at 2 am that night, I didn’t even pretend to go to bed. I sat in my kitchen from 2 to 6 am, trading emails with the friend in San Francisco every few minutes—–I didn’t dare send any message to my son until it was over!! I knew how raw his nerves would be. I groaned when I heard it was raining, and I could just imagine the wild excitement and unbearable tension in the stadium!!! And my son’s stress as he watched the game. I was with him in thought every minute, sitting in my kitchen in France, wishing I were there with him!!!

When the score was 6 to nothing, all I could do was stare at my computer screen waiting for the next report, pace around my kitchen, drink water, tea, pace some more and hope the score would stay in our favour. And then the score was 7 to 0. By then I was in a total state. And at the top of the ninth, with the same score, the friend in SF wrote that they might have to stop the game for a while in the pounding rain. I could hardly stand it, as I waited…and then, FINALLY, just after 6 am, the news came across my screen. We WON!!! And I could text my congratulations to my son. What a FANTASTIC victory for the Giants, and their fans. I could just imagine the drenched fans (and my son) sitting in the pouring rain watching the team seize victory!!! (I had a moment of motherly insanity, when I thought, “I hope he wore a raincoat”, and then laughed at myself. I don’t think he has worn a raincoat since nursery school, when he had one he loved that had big floppy dog ears on the hood!! Of course he didn’t wear a raincoat, and of course he was sitting in the pouring rain, with his heart in his mouth, aching for the team to win. And WHAT A WIN!!!! And sitting alone in my kitchen in Paris, reading my friend’s messages all night, my heart was in my mouth too, for my son and the team!!! I screamed at 6 am when the final score came on my computer screen. Holy Shit!!! They DID it!!!! What an incredible, wonderful, fabulous moment…sweet victory!!!! It’s sooooo exciting….now on to the World Series….and victory again, I hope!!!! That final game of the playoffs must have been some kind of baseball history, and I will never forget it, sitting in my Paris kitchen til 6 am, listening to the game minute by minute, thinking of the team and the fans, AND my son in the pouring rain….my heart was with him every inch of the way. GO TEAM!!!! What a game!!!! What a night!! What a team!!!

Love, Danielle