I also realize that it has been 10 years since I last put on the uniform. A decade. The decade before that, when I was a player and living the dream, it also unfortunately happened to be an era laced with steroids. But I was still there.
There are moments now when 10 years feels like an eternity. When I prepare to broadcast a game, I can evaluate a pitcher using FIP (“fielding-independent pitching”; how a pitcher performs apart from his defense) or a hitter using WAR (“wins above replacement”; how much value a player has over his replacement). Whatever happened to “batting average,” or “stolen bases”? It goes on: I can discuss the imaginary K-zone to determine whether a pitch was a strike, I can see what a key player said on Twitter about why he overthrew the cutoff man.
But sometimes the most dramatic change is in how my body feels. Last week, my family decided to do a yard cleanup of the front of our kids’ school. So a handful of us spent almost two hours picking it up. The best technique seemed to be to get low and stay low. But little did I realize that was like doing lunges for two hours. My legs are still sore. Hardly a professional baseball player.
Then I look at my kids and realize that I am having full-blown conversations with real people who were not even close to being born when I retired.
Thankfully, I have moments when it still feels like yesterday. In looking at the games this past week, I thought back to all of my Opening Days.
I can still remember them. The first week, you might have a few Opening Days. You open up at home, and you might also find yourself at other home-openers as the road team. I remember my first Opening Day, in Miami in 1997, when even balmy South Florida couldn’t calm my nerves. And being the first hitter and getting the first hit ever at Enron Field in Houston. And witnessing a “Survivor”-themed Opening Day in Montreal in which tiki lamps representing the opposition — us — were snuffed out and so “eliminated.”
As for the games themselves, one year, I went 0 for 6 against the Mets after contracting what I was sure was the bubonic plague the night before. Another year, I was 3 for 7 with a home run, and came away convinced I would lead the league in home runs with 162. And there was the season my father had a severe stroke the last day of spring training, which made my excitement about facing the Hall of Famer Randy Johnson in the opener dissipate in a heartbeat.
Opening Day marks time like no other day in the season. It is a transition, from an off-season of adapting to your lessons of the year before to putting them into practice. That reality can give even a veteran sweaty palms.
It’s also when you begin anew to add to your time capsule. It would have been nice to fill it with all-star trophies, World Series rings and M.V.P. awards. Yet most players, like me, have to be creative; most players have to define important moments by something that may be special only to them.
So, if I could, I would drop into it: My 1,000th hit, which I got the day my father passed away. The picture with Jackie Robinson’s wife, Rachel, from 25 years ago. My Phillies Wiffle ball helmet. The first autograph I ever received in the mail, from Bob Boone. The jersey signed by everyone I played with and against in the Hall of Fame game — the only game my kids saw me play. The stub from the day I retired, when my wife and my mother came in support. The picture with Mike Schmidt from a charity bowling event. Garry Maddox’s R.S.V.P. to my wedding. The game ball from my winning hit against the Marlins in Game 3 of the N.L.C.S. in 2003. My first hit, which was against my favorite team, the Phillies. My M.V.P. trophy from playing winter ball in Puerto Rico, which was more about how the people of Puerto Rico embraced me as family. To name only a few.
But this time capsule would have to contain infinite space because it is also filled with relationships, or symbols of those relationships, many of which began on Opening Day. Not necessarily an Opening Day from my career, it could be from any time and place. Some of them I watched on TV when I was a child, others I could only imagine — like the power of Jackie Robinson’s Opening Day. But they all are part of me.
As for 2015, it looks as if my old Phillies and Cubs might have learning-curve seasons. But every day offers another chance to add to a cup that already runneth over with good memories. And I love the fact that in baseball, the flow never stops.
