When most people see their lives flashing in front of their eyes,they're facing a speeding semi or flying in a plane plunging intofree fall.
My life flashed in front of my eyes during the trailers for themovie 'Fever Pitch.'
The new Drew Barrymore-Jimmy Fallon romantic comedy is a frothylittle tale of opposites attracting. Lindsey, Barrymore's brainy,workaholic numbers-cruncher, meets up with Ben, Fallon's sensitiveschoolteacher whose only flaw is his obsessive devotion to the BostonRed Sox. Sexual sparks fly. But misgivings arise when she begins torealize what life is actually like with someone whose world can beturned upside down by changes in the next game's starting lineup.
Girl, tell me about it.
I should sue writers and directors Lowell Ganz and BabalooMandell, Bobby and Peter Farrelly for dialogue lifted from the scriptof my married life.
Lindsey: 'It's only a game.' 'What makes that a foul?' 'This isnot a man's closet.' 'What time is the game over?'
Ben: 'They need me.' 'I missed the greatest game ever.' 'I don'twant to hear the score.'
Is my home bugged?
For the past several decades, I have been married to a sport fanswhose devotion to his teams, especially in the first years of ourmarriage, stretched even beyond that of the Boys-of-Summer Ben.
Steve is a Cubs fan, a season tickets Cubs fan, a fan who managesto see most of the Cubs' 80-plus home games in person at WrigleyField. But he is also an Ohio State football and basketball fan.Which means, whether at the ballpark or parked in front of the TV, heis living and dying to the rhythm of large or small bouncing, battedor pitched balls for the greater part of the year.
Until he managed to get a grip on his obsession, he spent theremaining time in a funk because his teams were idle and probablymaking bonehead trades or recruiting choices.
I didn't know this when we married. It was the 1970s, and the Cubsweren't doing especially well. He didn't yet have season tickets. Therhythm of our courtship superceded the competing beat of playoffgames.
I had some hints, however. I had lived in New York City in 1969and, not wanting him to think I was entirely sportsphobic, I told himabout the thrill of seeing the victorious New York Mets celebratetheir World Series win with a parade down Broadway. A month afterthat series, he replied, he had checked into the hospital with anulcer probably precipitated by the Cubs' infamous fade that year. Afade, I now know, that coincided with the Mets' miraculous rise.
My worries mounted as our wedding approached. He took me to myfirst Bears game, a night game played in steady drizzle withtemperatures hovering near freezing. I immediately knew I did notwant to spend my married life freezing in rain-soaked stadiums.
I told him as much at our first Ohio State game, in Madison, Wis.A jovial elderly lady, entirely clad in OSU's scarlet and gray colorsand sporting a buckeye necklace, was being passed like a life-sizedoll from row to row. Her knees were shot, and fans were helping herreach her seat in the upper rows of the top deck. If, I said sternly,Steve had the slightest thought that that would ever be me, I was nowofficially disabusing him of the notion.
But there have been pleasant moments for me on Steve's turf. Someof his friends from the ballpark have become my close friends.
A shot in 'Fever Pitch' of a snow-covered Fenway Park reminded meof the year Steve traded his two season tickets in the grandstand(now the terrace reserve) for a single club box ticket. (UnlikeLindsey, I've never developed a taste for baseball and see maybe twogames a year.) We went up to Wrigley Field one January afternoon, andI mimicked arm-waving vendors and crazy fans while he checked out thesightlines from various seats.
Over the years, Steve's emotional investment in his teams, hisfoul temper when the Cubs were playing badly, the fact that we had toconsult Ohio State and Cubs schedules before planning vacations,nights out or family events drove me insane.
It was galling because I had had a brush of my own with that kindof one-sided emotional investment. I moved to New York after collegeexpressly to indulge my passion for ballet and classical music. Itook a day job that would cover the cost of cheap tickets, and Ispent five nights a week at Lincoln Center absorbing all the New YorkCity Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera and New YorkPhilharmonic had to offer.
In the standing room lines and upper balconies, I encountered thearts equivalent of crazed sports fans. The dance fans were scariest.Little ladies who had been coming to the ballet for decades talkedabout the dancers as if they were intimate friends. The artistsdidn't know they existed, but they worried endlessly if Patty's(McBride) pirouettes were shaky or Eddie (Villella) missed anairborne turn. They were in torment over Suzanne's (Farrell) fallingout with Mr. B (New York City Ballet founder, choreographer GeorgeBalanchine). They stalked away in fury after a performance that didnot meet their expectations. They probably, I thought, went home andkicked the cat.
It was creepy, I decided. Why turn your emotional well-being overto people who don't know your name? Would Patty help you celebrateyour birthday? Would Suzanne give you a call when you were sick? DidMr. B care about your rocky love life?
As the overly wise little boy asks Ben in 'Fever Pitch,' 'You lovethe Red Sox, but have they ever loved you back?'
That was not going to be me. I swore I would either get involvedwith the arts world as a legitimate professional, or I would scaleback my devotion.
Like Lindsey and Ben, Steve and I managed to find a middle ground.He came to realize that grown men don't treasure ball teams abovetheir wives and families. I came to realize that grown women can makeroom in their lives for their husbands' beloved sports teams, butonly if they know their husbands cherish them more than the endlessarray of players to be named later.
I know that Steve will turn off the TV if I ask and give me hisfull attention. But if it's two outs in the bottom of the ninth, thegame is tied and the count is 3-2, the reason had better becompelling. 'The doctor called back, and the lab results aren't good'qualifies. 'Do I look fat in this skirt?' does not.
Steve knows that a football weekend in Columbus, Ohio, had betterinclude time for a long, leisurely dinner at a classy restaurant. Theinvention of the VCR has probably saved our marriage.
If we're lucky, a handful of the billions of people on the face ofthe earth care whether we live or die. The Cubs' power hitters wereunavailable when my elderly mother was lying on the floor of herRogers Park apartment, and I needed Steve to kick in the deadbolt-locked front door. The OSU defensive line was otherwise occupied whenSteve's parents died and early morning flights to California had tobe caught.
None of them was on hand to celebrate when our niece published herfirst book, and our grand-nieces and grand-nephews came into theworld.
The boys of summer have their youthful charms. But infinitely moreprecious and lovable and sexy are the men -- and women -- who willstand unfailingly by our sides in winter as well.
Wynne Delacoma is the classical music critic of the Sun-Times.
