The October wind blew fiercely on the small cemetery where the writer would be put in the ground. The World Series was set to start in three hours, and for the first time in twenty-eight years, he wouldn’t be there.
The writer had been found in his car early the previous morning, pressed up against the steering wheel as if hugging the memory of the wife who’d left him while he was covering the 1995 American League Championship Series.
It was a heart attack at the age of 49, the product of the valve issue he’d been diagnosed with during the All-Star break in 2001 and hadn’t cared to think about since.
The ex wasn’t there that day among the plots. Neither were any of his competitors on the Yankee beat. They were all in Philadelphia, feeling important while milling around at Citizens Bank Park prior to the first pitch of the Fall Classic, tweeting nuggets like, “Field looks great” and “Chilly air reminds u it’s October, best time of year” to help keep their newspapers breathing.
The son, 26, newly married and about to embark on a career in investment banking, stood silently as the pastor spoke of the great moments of the writer’s life: covering Jim Abbott’s no-hitter and Joe Carter’s World Series-winning homer, both in the same year. His solid working relationship with the Yankees’ public relations director. How he loved the road trips to Anaheim because of In-N-Out Burger and Kansas City because of L.C.’s Barbecue.
The son wasn’t mentioned, and once again he understood. Baseball is a grind, from the six weeks in Florida in February and March to the 162 games of the regular season to the long days and nights of the playoffs in October.
The food had been on the table even if Dad wasn’t sitting at it.
Missing graduations made sense so close to the trade deadline. Christmas was winter meetings and the hot stove season. There wasn’t much in the bank account, but they had enough Marriott points for a month-long Maui vacation.
The pastor asked the son if there was anything left to say. The son shook his head and produced a neatly folded newspaper clipping he had found that morning. He placed the article at the foot of the headstone, using a rock as a paper weight.
It was a Tuesday notebook item on a flareup in Mariano Rivera’s right elbow — the last words of the best writer he never knew.
***
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