Sculpted Memories (One Sixty-Two: Day 137)

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 Thirty-Seven: Travis Hafner, Cleveland Indians

Maya and I were sneaking around the shrubs and sculptures, trying to get a quick glance at the guests in their dark suits and vibrant dresses. They sat in white folding chairs, surrounded by beautiful works of art. They awaited the bride, the groom, and the wedding ceremony itself.

Maya and I had discovered this impending outdoor wedding at a magical place called the Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, N.J. As Maya’s family and my family walked together through this 35-acre public sculpture park just outside Princeton, we viewed many of the 240 or so contemporary sculpture pieces here. We saw them in open fields, atop hills, beside a pond and a lake, and inside buildings. We chatted, posed for photos, touched the sculptures we were permitted to touch, and climbed the one we were allowed to climb.

But spectacular sculptures aside, the thing that caught our attention the most was this wedding not far from Isaac Witkin’s stunning “Garden State” sculpture. When we noticed the hustle and bustle, 5-year-old Maya wanted to view it all. We saw handsome groomsmen standing tall in their tuxedos, we saw guests dressed in orange and green traditional African dresses, and we saw ushers wearing headsets so they could organize this ceremony with the precision of a rock concert. We didn’t have time to stay and wait for the ceremony to start, but we did have time to sit and talk about weddings for a while.

So as Maya and her 3-year-old sister, Quinn, sat on the grass with their parents and with my wife and girls, I shared some details of my own wedding. I told Maya how I had to stand for 30 minutes inside a church while waiting for my wife-to-be to arrive in her limousine. I told Maya how I later learned that Amy had been posing for wedding pictures on her parents’ lawn, even taking a few photos with her dog, while I stood and sweated in the sanctuary. Maya liked the dog part. Amy smiled at the memories, too, although she wasn’t going along on the guilt trip.

It’s been 12 years since the dog in those wedding photos died. And in a few days, Amy and I will celebrate the 15th anniversary of our wedding. By next fall, Maya and Quinn’s parents will have been married for 10 years. In the vibrant joy of the moment, it’s hard to envision it all being a memory someday. And yet it happens.

Three years ago, Travis Hafner batted cleanup for a Cleveland Indians team that came within one game of the World Series. Today, that Indians club is mired in last place, and it has traded away most of its veterans (Hafner, due to injuries and a large salary, is not a tradable commodity these days). Cleveland has acquired some talented prospects for those veterans, but it’s going to be awhile before the Indians are that close to a pennant again.

So Hafner and the Indians’ fans are left with memories, which seem a little more distant every year. But when time moves on and those memories start to fade a bit, you need to tip-toe past the shrubs, and catch a glimpse of the bride in white, walking along a sculpture-filled path on her way to saying “I do.” This will bring it all back, Maya. You’ll see it again, and you’ll remember the magic. You’ll be glad you waited a half-hour for your life’s partner to finish taking those pictures. A work of art is worth the time.