The Shooting Star (One Sixty-Two: Day 115)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One Hundred Fifteen: Brian Roberts, Baltimore Orioles (via Peter Horn)

There was a meteor shower the other night, which was a perfect fit for the week of Peter Horn’s wedding. We can’t meet all of the people living among us in this world, but there are some folks who seem to come awfully close. They spend a good portion of their lives trying to connect with as many individuals as possible. Peter is one such person.

Peter goes by a lot of titles: teacher, musician, poet, actor, administrator, mentor, student, friend, son, brother, uncle. But perhaps the best way to describe this man is as a shooting star, a force of nature who lights up the room wherever he goes, and finds a way to illuminate the lives of those whom he encounters.

Yesterday, Peter added another title to his life list: Husband. He and his wife, Robyn, held hands in a charming church ceremony and declared their love for each other via personalized vows and an “All You Need is Love” recessional. After the ceremony, Peter and Robyn led their guests to a field nestled warmly in the heart of the Catskill Mountains. As guests dined and socialized beneath a giant white tent, members of the bride and groom’s families performed music and delivered eloquent toasts. Dozens of guests had taken up Peter and Robyn on their offer to camp on the grounds of the wedding reception, and their tents could be seen down a trail, pitched beside a clear stream.

As the carrot-cake cupcakes disappeared from the dessert tray, the reception ended and this wedding began its third act: that of a rock concert. Friends and relatives of the bride and groom took turns on a stage, complete with speakers and video screen, to end this joyous day by rocking out. As they had done all day long, the bride and groom floated around the tent, connecting with as many people as they could. At around nine at night, Peter tapped me on the shoulder and introduced me to an uncle of his who loves baseball. Peter told his uncle that I was the author of “The Pitch,” a baseball blog, then moved on to chat with another guest.

The uncle told me he was a fan of the Baltimore Orioles, and that he’s heard good things about the team’s new manager, Buck Showalter. I told him his club had a lot of good, young players. The Orioles also have a second baseman in Brian Roberts who manages to make everyone else on the field better. A Peter Horn of sorts. But as for Peter’s uncle, he wasn’t really in a place where he could break down Brian Roberts’s intangibles. He’d been making rather merry on this day. “My problem,” he told me, “is that I don’t blog. I’ve got to start blogging.”

I smiled, and let Peter’s uncle enjoy the rest of his festive evening. When I turned toward the stage, I saw the bride. Still glowing in her white gown, Robyn stood before a microphone. Robyn is a stage performer, but she’s been known to front the occasional rock band. Peter, meanwhile, was hooking up his electric violin. His bandmates were ready, and off they went, bride and groom, sharing the vocals to Cream’s “White Room.”

A little while later, as my wife and I were carrying our sleepy daughters to the car, we looked up above the trees on this dark, dreamy evening. Thousands of stars sparkled in that black sky like nothing I’ve ever seen outside of a planetarium. As we neared our car, we could hear the voices of husband and wife, newlyweds, leading their guests in a sing-a-long:

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me / Shine until tomorrow, let it be.

I’m not privy to the music of angels quite yet. But I have a feeling it sounded and felt a lot like August 14th, on a heavenly hill, where a shooting star and his radiant wife led their friends beneath a white tent to celebrate life.