This Is Us

            The other day, my wife told me we needed to watch a new TV show together. This is significant, as it will be just the fourth show we’ve watched together this century. Other than The West Wing, Glee and Friday Night Lights, we’ve missed out on this “golden age” of dramatic television. We heard great things about Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wire, The Sopranos and Homeland to name just a few, but have found ourselves feeling lucky if we’re able to catch an inning of a baseball game or the opening skit of Saturday Night Live.

            The reason for this is very simple: We had our first child in January 2002, and have spent the past 15 years absorbed in that work. It has been the No. 1 priority in our lives, and will remain so for as long as they’re beneath our roof. Even now, as I write these words, I sit in a Starbucks on a Friday evening while our younger daughter plays laser tag at a friend’s birthday party. Sure, it’s prime date-night time or, at the very least, DVR-watching time. But an 11-year-old and 14-year-old need you to make dinner, wash the clothes, clean the house, enforce the technology time and chauffeur them everywhere. We’re Uber-parents, all right, but we work for free.

            The show my wife selected is called This Is Us, and from what I hear lots of people are watching it. After just two episodes, I’m not sure if it’s a bit too melodramatic for me, but I can definitely connect with its depiction of ordinary life in extraordinary ways. The average day of parenting consists of more ordinary moments than I can name, but when viewed through a wide-angle lens it is extraordinary enough to take your breath away.

            Take this past Halloween, for instance. I had to work until 6, and when I got home the girls had decided not to go trick-or-treating but to focus instead on giving candy to the little ones in our neighborhood. Then they changed their minds, painted their faces, and headed into the neighborhood with bags. Then the older one, Katie, changed her mind again after two houses, and they came back with about four pieces of candy. Chelsea, our younger one, held a canvas trick-or-treating bag that had the year and name of every costume she’d every worn written in marker, from Boots the Monkey to Glinda from Wicked. It was kind of sad and depressing to see them bail out on the only thing they’d ever done on Halloween night, but we made the best of it and spent time together until Katie headed up to her room to clean her fish tank.

            Sometime toward the end of the tank cleaning, we heard Katie start to cry. She had filled the tank with water that was too warm, and it had killed the Betta fish. She’d fed and cared for her fish every day for the two months since we’d been given a tank and she had bought the fish, and now this. So at 8:30 on Halloween, I found myself holding a spade in our backyard, digging a hole for Polly the fish. No one else wanted to see me do it, but flushing had been declared out of bounds. So it was just me and Polly, in the darkness of Halloween. I tucked her into the ground, patted the dirt and headed back inside.

            This is us. There’s nothing all that unusual about our domestic life, but at the same time we are making our way through these days together, and when families do this they carry a resiliency and poetry that is hard to believe sometimes. As parents, it feels like we’re in the trenches so much of the time, but at the same time we’re also helping lead a parade of pride and progress.

            We negotiate phone time, beg for clothes to be put away, celebrate improved math scores, discuss friendship choices and encourage their development of identity. We love them madly, but we parent with maddening inconsistency at times, and we find ourselves mad at each other and ourselves when yet another day goes by without any couple time. We bury the fish, tuck away their trick-or-treat bags, and give them a hug. We tell them we love them, and they whisper “Love you too” before we close the door.

             One of these days, Amy and I will watch another episode of this show. The free time will surface eventually, and we’ll cuddle up together. As we watch, we’ll notice the parallels between life and art. We’ve missed a lot of good TV over the years, that’s for sure. But we’ve been busy – writing our own story. 

Buy Me Some iPads & Cracker Jack

I’ve been a Yankees fan for 35 years now, ever since that Sunday afternoon in June when my mother drove me to the ballpark in the South Bronx for the first time. It was Bat Day, 1977, and I was handed a wooden bat with Thurman Munson’s name and Burger King’s logo engraved on it. It didn’t matter to me that the Yankees lost to the Minnesota Twins that afternoon. As I stared out at the vast expanse of green before me, and as I heard the crack of bat against ball, I was hooked. A Yankee fan for life.

Since that day, I’ve chatted about the Yankees all the time with my mom, brother, grandparents, friends and wife. Even my dad, who grew up rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers and was deprived of the chance to bring his sons to the ballpark that sparked his childhood dreams, has come around to talking Yankees with us. And my daughters, despite their marked preference for Webkins and Glee, have their moments of joining in some pinstriped passion.

When talking baseball with others, it can be uncomfortable to share the fact that I’m a Yankees fan. There are, of course, those 27 championships to gloat over – 16 more than any other team in baseball history. With the Yankees sporting baseball’s highest payroll every year, it’s easy to assume that I’m a front-runner. Here in New York, Mets fans may have more misery, but they can always claim the integrity of sticking with their team no matter what the outcome.

Yet, I came of age in the 1980s, the one decade in the past five in which the Mets can clearly say they were New York’s team. I watched the Yankees go 14 consecutive years without making the playoffs, and saw the Mets claim a World Series title and a division crown during that same stretch. Had there been a Wild Card team during those years, the Mets would have made the playoffs six times in seven years. Meanwhile, the Yankees were stumbling along with a variety of managers, general managers and high-priced veterans. So I know what it’s like to see your favorite team implode in front of you while other local club gets all the press.

The past 17 years have changed that landscape quite a bit, though, as the Yankees have made the playoffs every year but one since 1995. It may seem a bit outdated to use the old cliché that cheering for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel. So to update it a bit for 2012, cheering on the Bronx Bombers is more like cheering for higher quarterly reports from Apple. Ho-hum. Buy me some iPads and Cracker Jack.

But with all honesty and understanding, I ask you this: What can I do? Must I feel guilty for the Yankees’ success? Should I stop rooting for the Yankees simply because they have won too often? Do I push aside my memories and toss that old Thurman Munson bat in the trash because of my adult awareness of economics? Is competitive imbalance enough reason to turn aside the rush of childhood joy that accompanies the sight of an interlocking NY? Aren’t all of our baseball passions much more about feeling 8 years old again than about thirsting for victory?

In recent years, Major League Baseball has taken important steps to level the playing field somewhat in terms of team revenue, thanks in large part to revenue-sharing and luxury taxes. In addition, changes to the way the game is played and scouted have turned baseball into a sport dominated by the best young players teams can find. The Yankees have won just one championship over the past 11 years, and their 2012 club is just like all the others they’ve put together over that time period – very talented, but with clear weak spots. They might win, and they might not.

So I’ll cheer for the Yankees in 2012, just as I always have. But at age 41, I’ve matured to the point where my heart no longer breaks if the Yankees’ season ends with a loss. Because I know that whenever my team loses, there are other fans, with their own passions and memories, who are delighted over their team’s victories. Last year, as the St. Louis Cardinals claimed their 11th championship, millions of Redbirds fans were glorying in their unexpected triumph. That’s pretty awesome to see, no matter what the team. This year, I’ve got my eye on the Royals from Kansas City, who have not made the playoffs since their championship season of 1985, and who are unveiling a team filled with some of baseball’s top young talent. It might not be this year for the Royals, but it may be quite soon. I’m also watching out for the Nationals of Washington, who have even more young talent than Kansas City, and could contend for the playoffs as soon as this season. Washington has only seen one baseball championship, and that was nearly 90 years ago. Perhaps it’s about time for a second.

A new baseball season is set to begin this week. I’m hoping to get to a couple of Yankees games this year, where I can see that big green field and hear those bats and balls connect. The season will unfold, and I’ll follow it like a novel I can’t put down. But no matter what happens in the end, it will have been worth it. It always is.