A summer day in Santa Rosa, like most of coastal northern
California, most often begins in a bleak, cold fog. By about 10am, a shaft of
sunlight might reflect off a car window or the leaves of a eucalyptus tree, or
the golden, burned out grass that covers the ground of the rolling coastal
hills like velvet. In about 15 minutes, the sky is a deep shade of blue and the
sun is so bright it hurts.
Every day
began this way during my family’s last visit from Pennsylvania to see my
parents. My dad had the TV on each morning when we arrived at their apartment,
operating at a decibel level in the high 20’s. We spent each morning conversing
with my mom and one another in a general state of loudness, our voices like
salmon fighting against a swift current of political talking points flowing
from a coaxial cable connected to an endless watershed of cable news.
The day
began just this way on the Sunday of our visit. In the afternoon, my dad took
his usual post lunch nap on his recliner. When he woke up, he gripped his
shaky, weak right hand around the television remote and turned on the
television, which had been at rest, allowing everyone else to enjoy a respite
of quite conversation during his 90 minutes of slumber.
The Giants were on, playing the
Arizona Diamondbacks. The day before, when we got him registered for hospice,
the nurse asked my father about his passions in life, not including his family.
He mentioned only the San Francisco Giants and the Democratic Party, in that
order.
It was the
bottom of the fourth, and the Giants already had a 4-1 lead. Their starting
pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, stood at the plate, batting with bases loaded. Like
most pitchers in the National League, he stood just a little bit upright, making him appear very slightly more awkward than most hitters.
“Buster
Posey’s already hit a grand slam in this game,” said the play-by-play
announcer.
“Did you
hear that dad?” I said. “Posey’s hit a grand slam.”
My dad
nodded his head while raising his eyebrows.
Bumgarner
waited for the first pitch. The sun had broken through the fog in San Francisco
too, and reflected off his black batting helmet in flashes of white that
projected sharply on the high definition screen. The camera angles cut from
behind the Diamondbacks’ pitcher, to the pitcher’s face, to fans cheering on
Bumgarner. My father reclined, his feet elevated, swollen like two small loaves
of bread dough rising in their pans. He wore sweatpants and a brown sweater,
although the outside temperature by this time was in the high 80’s. At one
time, he would have been leaning forward in his chair at a moment like this,
eating a large liverwurst and tomato sandwich on rye with a can of Coors or a
bottle of Heineken.
On
television, a fan leaned over the railing in the front row near the right field
foul pole, the camera catching him from behind. He wore a gray jersey with
Bumgarner's number 40. Sewn across his shoulders in black letters bordered with orange
embroidery was the word “Snotrocket.”
“There you
go Mike,” the play by play announcer said. At the volume that my dad set, it
felt like a fog horn. “A Snotrocket for a Snotrocket!”
“He-he,”
from the color commentator. “That’s a Snotrocket for sure, he-he-he!”
I looked at
my dad, who remained staring at the screen without expression. The camera was
behind the pitcher. He wound and delivered a fastball so straight even a casual
fan could identify it as a fastball. Bumgarner swung, suddenly looking
confident and in control. The ball ricochet off the barrel of his black bat,
traveling in a straight line out of the screen almost faster than one could
detect. The camera angle quickly changed to the view from the press box behind
home plate. The ball continued to travel in an upward trajectory until it was
well into the outfield, and didn’t show any sign of turning downward, even
after it landed fair, about four rows into the outfield bleachers.
Cut to the
fans in orange hysterically cheering, slapping high fives, hugging, Bumgarner
rounding the bases, Diamondbacks’ pitcher staring at his feet, Bumgarner
greeted at home plate by adoring teammates, announcers marveling at the
pitcher’s second grand slam of the season, the guy with the Snotrocket jersey.
We watched,
my son Nick and I cheered, my dad sat up a little, did a small punch of the air
with his fist. With the first smile on his face all day, he turned around and
said, “Hey, how ‘bout that!”
“Now that’s
a Snotrocket if I’ve ever seen one!” Came a voice from the television. The
camera seemed to be frozen on the guy with the Snotrocket jersey.
“Dad,” I
said. He turned his head from the screen to look at me. “Is Bumgarner’s
nickname ‘Snotrocket?’”
In a deep baritone,
deeper than that of the baseball announcer, more authoritative than Walter
Cronkite, the voice my father could conjure to get nearly anyone to listen to
his valued expertise on all subjects, the voice of GOD, he said, “NO.”
My dad used
to like to say that he was only wrong once, when he thought he was wrong but he
wasn’t. That was a tugboat that towed him a long way down the foggy, comedic
Tropic of Cancer dividing self-deprecation from hubris, so with that, I sat
back on the couch. Nick gave me a small shrug and returned his eyes to the
screen. The announcers continued to focus upon the guy with the Snotrocket
jersey, apparently finding that more compelling than having just witnessed the
first time in major league history that a pitcher and catcher had hit grand
slams in the same game.
“He wore
the right jersey today!”
“Snotrocket!
That’s great!”
This was a
scab I couldn’t keep from scratching. “Dad, are you sure that Bumgarner’s
nickname isn’t Snotrocket?”
“No, it’s
not.” Same voice, punctuated by a kind of short grunt and clearing of the
throat.
Dad
continued to stare at the screen. The camera followed Bumgarner descending the
steps into the dugout, teammates slapping his helmet, tugging his brown beard,
high fiving.
Bumgarner
didn’t smile, or stare at the camera. After sitting on the bench, he raised his
right index finger to his right nostril. As fast as he turned on the fastball a
moment earlier, he blew, sending a white shot of mucus toward the bottom of the
screen, perhaps only visible in high definition.
“There he
goes! Another Snotrocket!” The announcers were now beside themselves in
laughter. The nostril shot got replayed two more times.
I looked
over at my dad. He continued to stare at the screen. I couldn’t help myself.
“Dad, I
think Madison Bumgarner’s nickname is definitely Snotrocket.”
He finally
turned his head toward me. He raised one eyebrow, an expression that he could
still execute after all these years. It was a brilliant look, cultivated and
practiced at cocktail parties spanning over the entire latter half of the 20th
century. It was a gently mocking expression that communicated his attempt to masquerade
his boredom with a labored gesture of surprise.
“Is that
so,” he said. He returned his gaze to the high definition television.
