• He tried to convince me that the Bleacher Creatures at Yankee Stadium were an endearing fixture and that I should learn to appreciate the hard work and dedication they bring to the ballpark every game. Upon the third acknowledgement, I changed the station and he wrestled me for the remote. We settled on fifteen minutes of the banal History Channel television show Pawn Stars, before I agreed that Chumlee is far worse than Ali Ramirez ever could have been and I watched all nine innings.

• He wanted to wait in line at Shake Shack, which I thought was extremely ridiculous, disrespectful even, given the fact that there was a baseball game going on. Yet, he waited in line while I leaned over the balcony watching the game in the distance and he greeted me with a shake and a kiss—even though he missed two innings, I certainly felt as though I’d gained something.

• He doesn’t come to visit often, but when he does, I make sure to take him to a shop that sells action figures and other collectibles. Among the Alf dolls, Star Wars action figures, old records, and Lite Brites, there are bins filled with used action figures that haven’t seen regular playing time in twenty years. Being sheltered from nerdom, I don’t recognize most of the contents in these plastic totes, throwing aside the Han Solos and space creatures, because we’re looking for something very specific: the Starting Lineup baseball action figures we had as kids, but have since lost. A Mike Greenwell and a Carl Yastrzemski later, the trip was a success.

• At a bookstore that also serves dessert, he tried to convince me he was a man who knew what he wanted, despite his age.  While I’d usually find such conversations on first dates about wanting a relationship frightening, he said everything with such conviction; I had no choice but to believe him. And to be fair, for two months he was right.

• It had been a long day of work and travel, and by time I arrived at his place, I was exhausted. I kept fighting the urge to fall asleep, and even through cat naps, he kept talking to me about baseball. He’d go on a lengthy diatribe and ask, “Cee are you awake?” and I’d say yes, even though I wasn’t. We fell asleep on a sectional sofa, arms adjoined across the L shaped furniture, listening to Vin Scully call the Dodgers game. I remember it all, even though I was sleeping.

• Because of the patio party tickets at the White Sox game, we had unlimited hotdogs and beer, which ultimately leads to poor decision-making. Somehow we acquired stickers for the busy right-field patio bar, and six of us crammed into a picnic table attended for four. For three outs, in an act of pure drunken ignorance, he continued to scream, “IS IT PRONOUNCED BOSSSSSH or BOUUUUSSSSH?” at the right fielder for the Detroit Tigers.

• We sat on the floor for over an hour, digging through unorganized bins of baseball cards. Some were separated by team—the White Sox and Cubs had their own boxes—but most were sorted by era only, creating a grab bag of surprises. As the three of us sat there pilfering through the boxes, growing our collections, we shared laughs over tragic haircuts and statistics. When it was time to go, we paid nominally for the collection of cardboard, and purchased new packs to find rookie Jason Heyward’s. I wanted an autographed Varitek card that resided with the other cards of value underneath the glass, but couldn’t justify the expense on my graduate school budget. On the walk back to the train, I was surprised by a card a friend purchased for me—a Jason Varitek card in a camouflage chest protector, which I affectionately call my Camo-tek card.

• While at an Orioles game, he told me that the reason Nick Markakis would never reach his full-potential is because if you look at his spray chart, he hits everything to Center field, and so he just misses out on home runs frequently. In his next at-bat, Nick Markakis hit a homerun…over the Center field wall.

• At the Phillies/Red Sox game, my dad quizzed me on baseball trivia as the occasion necessitated. Fortunately, I could name all the teams John Mayberry played for and I also knew what year Pete Rose joined the Phillies. We ate peanuts, which is our ballpark tradition, and because of the wind the dust of the peanuts was blowing everywhere—including into the Paula Deenesque hair of the woman in front of us.

• Even though I had 103 fever on Opening Day, I decided to go anyway. I cuddled up on the sofa in the suite with a blanket that someone from the organization produced when he saw me shivering, drinking hot chocolate and Kahlua, watching the first game of the season. Though it didn’t aid in my recovery from the flu, it was at least a three-hour departure from feeling miserable.

• He told me that he’d bought the cheap seats for the game we attended because money is tight, and I completely understood. I didn’t look at the ticket as we entered the gates, and we stopped for beer, a new hat, and to hug a statue, in that order. I followed him through the concourse, because I’d follow him anywhere…and he led me to seats just a few rows from the dugout instead of the nosebleeds I’d expected. Even though we’re not together, he continues to be the best surprise of my life.

• When we met at the White Sox game, he had biked down from the north side. He had agreed to watch the White Sox/Red Sox game, instead of the Mets. From our seats, you couldn’t see the outfield scoreboard that posts the scores of other games, so he was insulated from seeing the Mets score, which he was recording at home. Our seats were in the shade along the right field line, while two friends baked in the sunshine of the third base line. Reaching their tolerance, they came to find us. Upon arrival, they introduced themselves to my friend. Noticing his Mets hat, one of them said, “Mets? Oh, they won” ruining the surprise of the game’s outcome that awaited him on the DVR. Luckily, they became friends anyway.

• Our second date was watching the San Francisco Giants win the World Series in his bed on a television that still had bunny ears, even though it was 2010. It largely didn’t matter, because there was good company, a bottle of champagne, and a cool breeze coming through the bedroom windows on an October evening. I’d cut out early on a pumpkin-carving party for this celebration, a decision I do not regret.

I just needed reassurance that I was doing the right thing. That the decision I made was best for me personally, while also being the right move for my career. Throughout the calls, I weighed the pros and the cons. I shrugged my shoulders frequently saying, “I don’t know if it’s right!” and the revolving characters on the other end assured me that it was.

When I got back to my desk, I googled “How to Resign.”

I have left jobs before, but it’s never been a shock that I was leaving. In fact, I was always clear and honest with my employers when I had life-changing events that would lead me to quit my job, but this was uncharted territory: I was leaving a position after being there for six-months, because it wasn’t the right fit.

I knew that this day was going to be a possibility since February, but there were several delays in the process. Throughout this time, I’ve learned I’m terrible at keeping secrets. But sometimes, life demands that we keep secrets, no matter how badly we want to tell them.

But now, I don’t have to keep secrets anymore. The DC experiment is over, and in two weeks, I’ll be moving for a new job that I’m extremely excited to tackle. It will be complicated, demanding, and finally put my degrees to good use, and I couldn’t be happier.

The job search for me has always been interesting, because I’ve always said I’d be willing to move anywhere for the right opportunity. I applied for jobs in San Francisco, I interviewed with a company in Texas, I had interviews for jobs in Ohio and Maryland, before making my decision.

They say you can’t go home again, but I’m willing to give it a try. See you in two weeks, Chicago.

My roommate laughs every time I write my absences on the calendar that coordinates our schedules on the refrigerator, because she assumes that all of this travel is for leisure. She’s jealous and inquisitive of the time I spend away, but the truth is that it’s been anything but leisure: it’s desperation for escape, a desire to be anywhere but here. I wish it were as simple as wanderlust.

I have lived a lot of places, and I’m kicking myself daily: the adjustment should be easy. But everything in DC is a reminder of failure, and honestly I don’t like the person I’ve become here: a person who begrudgingly wakes up in the morning. A person who exists, but doesn’t live.

It probably has very little to do with DC itself. Plenty of people are happy here. In fact, when I tell people that I do not like it here, I’m met with blank stares and confusion, as though I’ve told someone I do not enjoy daisies or sunshine. But to me, DC is a lot of things, none of them pleasant. It’s a constant comparison to a former life that is so fabled and exaggerated in my head, I’m not even sure those things ever really existed.

Close to the water, DC feels like a rowboat with a large hole in the bottom. This isn’t ideal because of my propensity for motion sickness, my disgust of fecal contaminated water, and I haven’t been swimming in years. Fortunately I have a bucket and I keep dumping gallon after gallon of water over the edge of the boat to keep things afloat, but no matter how comfortably I should be perched, the boat is still sinking.

Since DC isn’t creating happiness by happenstance, I’ve decided to chase it. My time here has turned into an attempt to interview as many potential eastern seaboard cities for future residence. I pull up to every location now and ask, “Could I live here?”

I find myself on street corners, closing my eyes to take deeper breaths, and think, “is this the place where I belong?” A few deep breaths later, I open my eyes and survey the landscape, immediately finding microscopic flaws in the place where I’m standing.

I’m finding it makes no difference if I’m there. Or here. Or there.

Some things don’t change. Cellphones are a reminder that we can be lonely anywhere—if I had a landline I could assume that the answering machine were full of messages from people that wanted to connect with me—but constant refreshing of the inbox, my timeline, and my voicemail have led me to conclude that’s not true. A watched phone never rings, and when you are desperate for someone to say hello, you remain desperate for a very long time.

I’m looking under rocks that haven’t been peeked under in years. I’ve tried picking up some hobbies that are long since forgotten, but none of them are bringing fulfillment. Playing with a digital SLR camera was the closest to happiness I’ve come lately, until I looked at the price tag and realized that contentment through a glass lens was several paychecks away.

I’ve tried unconventional relationships. I’ve made friends with people that I wouldn’t ordinarily give the time of day; I’ve opened pieces of my heart to explore new relationships, but I’ve largely failed. There is certainly not contentment in trying to commit yourself to someone then quickly realizing that you’re overcommitted and incapable of pulling the trigger even on momentary delight because of a fear of the future causing paralysis.

There have been a lot of baseball games, and there will be even more. I wish I could explain the escapism of being inside a ballpark, but it’s better than any other form of therapy I’ve paid for. Perhaps it’s the prescribed roles of all involved: the players play, the coaches coach, and the fans sit in the stands delighted in patronage.

It’s mostly impossible to have a bad time at a baseball game, save for a handful of reasons. Those events include, but are not limited to: being hit by a bat, being hit by ball, being hit by a drunk person doing the wave, getting a sunburn, ending up on the Jumbo-tron, or awkwardly refusing to hold someone’s hand, no matter how much they insist.

I particularly like keeping score at games because for three hours I am the keeper of all importance in the universe: that notebook depends on me to pay attention, keep my pencil sharp, and remain in my seat for the duration. There is no leaving, no time for daydreaming or fretting; there is only time to write numbers and letters in the scorebook. I put more care and thought into the scorebook than I have any project at work in six months—it’s a reminder that when challenged, even my dyslexic brain can stay engaged for long periods of time. I was starting to wonder if that was even still possible.

I hope that I am chasing an elusive happiness, not one that doesn’t exist. At the same time, I’m not exactly sure what I’m seeking—it’s difficult to quantity, qualify, and it’s impossible to Google. I’ve been operating under the assumption that I will know what it is when I see it, but it’s been years and I’ve seen nothing yet.

Some happiness has been a mirage. Most of those moments came recently in the form of a prospective friendship, turned relationship, turned friendship again. It came mostly in the form of intimate moments, thoughtful gifts, and an unrivaled spoiling. As it turns out, it couldn’t be any of those things, but even the idea of it was enough to be satisfying in some regards.

Right now, the greatest happiness comes in the prospect of the future. It’s easy to be consumed with the present and the laundry list of items that are not going right, but there’s satisfaction in knowing that as soon as I can gain a clear idea of what it means to be happy, genuinely happy, I can work towards carving those things out for myself. A wise person once told me that you are the keeper of your own satisfaction, and I believe that to be true. It’s just a matter of constant reassurance, readjustment, reconnecting. The rest might come easily.

Yes, I suppose it is.

But it doesn’t mark the beginning of my season, because the only time I wake before 5am is exactly once a week for a meeting with a personal trainer, who straps my decaffeinated body to an apparatus that approximates stairs. I cringe and keep stride to LCD Soundsystem while bemoaning the fact that I am:

A)     Awake

B)     Reminded with each step that back surgery was not successful

C)     In need of coffee

D)    Embarrassed to even look at others in the gym or my trainer because of my lack of fitness

So you’ll forgive that on a non-gym day that I couldn’t stay awake long enough between assaults on the snooze button to even turn on the game. By the grace of extra innings, I see three outs of the game once I arrive at the office.

(Seattle Mariners 3, Oakland Athletics 1) 

4/3/2012: A pre-season gift from Bud Selig arrives in the form of an exhibition game between the Nationals and Red Sox, near my office on a workday. I trade uncomfortable heels and an office-length skirt for my preferred springtime uniform: comfortable denim and an oversized cardigan.

Armed with a new scorebook and G-2 straight from the box, the afternoon is spent at Nationals Park with the starting day lineups getting one more day of warm ups instead of conference calls.

No hyperbole, but I am surrounded by idiots. First, I’m insulted for knowing too much about the Boston Red Sox by a stranger; then I’m told that women shouldn’t know how to keep score as well as I do.

There’s someone four rows back who keeps loudly mispronouncing Saltalamacchia’s name; he has also never heard of Jason Repko. Edwin Jackson pitches this game, but loses. A man from Richmond, Virginia makes wonderful baseball company; he even buys beer.

Teddy loses the race because jugglers distract him. I wonder if this is a metaphor for something larger, but decide to let it go.

Explaining the yips can be tiresome, but sometimes necessary. A close play at the plate to end the game is the only thing to bring home team fans to their feet. It’s hard to tell if they were outraged or just heading for the exits.

Witness quite the kerfuffle on the ramp of death out of the stadium between two unlikely attendees: an Oklahoma Sooners fan and an Auburn Tiger. Not an actual tiger, mind you.

(Boston Red Sox 8, Washington Nationals 7)

4/5/2012: This is Opening Day. It is a holiday in Cincinnati that has been pilfered and shared with other teams, making 4/5/2012 Opening Day for many teams, but not Opening Day for the Mariners and Athletics, because they already had Opening Day a week before Opening Day on 3/28/2012 in Japan.

45,027 go to Comerica Park to see Justin Verlander pitch 8 innings and Jose Valverde earn a win. Jon Lester looks fine, but the bullpen explodes around him. Mark Melancon loses and should not be confused with closer Alfredo Aceves.

My three-monitor setup in the office finally proves useful for something beyond spreadsheets and analysis.

His parents named him Yonder, but it’s a name that they made up—at least that’s what Vin Scully tells me while I’m cuddled on a roommate-less sofa. Clayton Kershaw has a case of stomach unpleasantness, which a man of Scully’s advanced age has no problem addressing in detail.

Ernesto Frieri’s is not the same as Guy Fieri, though I’m certain they both love cheesecake and driving vintage cars.

(Detroit Tigers 3, Boston Red Sox 2) (Los Angeles Dodgers 5, San Diego Padres 2)

4/6/2012: This is also Opening Day. It should not be confused with Opening Day on 3/28/2012 or Opening Day on 4/5/2012. If a team did not have an Opening Day on the aforementioned dates, that team is entitled to an Opening Day on 4/6/2012. There is an exception for the Oakland Athletics, who did have an Opening Day on 3/28/2012, but were granted the right to two Opening Days. If a team spent 3/28/2012 or 4/5/2012 or today, 4/26/2012, on the road for Opening Day celebrations, they are also entitled to an Opening Day at their home park at a later date.

I took a vacation day, because I get one floating holiday for religious purposes. Though no longer a practicing Catholic, I exercised my right to Good Friday. It was indeed Good, as I spent the day in watching baseball on a wall-mounted high-definition television in a hotel room just blocks from where the Orioles were playing. The appeal of uncomplicated company, unlimited napping, and unfettered access to the remote lead me to believe I made the right decision in not actually attending Opening Day (the 4/6/2012 version).

Alex Gonzalez is the starting Shortstop for the Milwaukee Brewers, which stumped my bedmate.

(St. Louis Cardinals 11, Milwaukee Brewers 5)

4/7/2012: This is my Opening Day. It is not an official Opening Day, but it is the Opening Day for the first time I attended a major league game in the 2012 record. There is a sabermetrician, a girl just old enough for beer, and newly acquainted Twitter person. They eat bacon on a stick; I buy a round of expensive beers.

A man in our section appears homeless at first glance, but likely just intoxicated and unkempt. He reads the starting lineup demanding our attention between sips of beers he has stolen from a stranger.

The head-shot of Jamey Carroll is downright maniacal. Baltimore gets more excited about something called the Crab Shuffle than they do baseball. People who sit on the edge of their stadium seats, especially when tall or portly, should be asked to leave immediately.

Nick Markakis would have better success as a hitter if he’d learn to hit the ball to anywhere but Centerfield, he tells me. Markakis promptly hits a home run over the Centerfield wall.

(Baltimore Orioles 8, Minnesota Twins 2)

4/11/2012: My work engagement is canceled and I find myself in New York. Prompted by a Pulp reunion, my best friend is there too. Similar fates have us on the 7 train to Citi Field. Some tickets cost $2.50 in an attempt to bring people (and small children) to the baseball park that would inhabit considerably less people if the tickets were higher. This is a basic economic principle called “People Can’t Help Themselves: It’s Cheap Baseball.”

Some bring matzo crackers; others eat Shack Shake. A man dressed as Dwight Gooden is arrested, but he assures security that he had very little to do with what the cops say he had a lot to do with.

There is hot chocolate served in Dunkin Donuts cups, but judging by the dispensers there’s very little Dunkin Donuts about it. Perhaps I should have asked the cops.

Santana pitches well, but Stephen Strasburg pitches better, according to my scorebook. Lucas Duda has terrible walk-up music:  it should be Camptown Races, but it’s not. The disgust for Jason Bay, however warranted, is enough to make me uncomfortable. It’s not to say I want to paint rosy pictures for poor production; it is to say that I appreciate athletes, even Mets, are humans.

Freezing cold, milkshakes, fan arrests, and no run support: the true Mets experience. The song promises that the Mets would be socking the ball and knocking home runs over the wall… the Mets didn’t score a single run.

Contrary to insistence by New Yorkers, no one likes riding a train that long.

(Washington Nationals 4, New York Mets 0)

4/13/2012: The aforementioned Opening Days that could be scheduled by away teams from the previous Opening Days is here. The Boston Red Sox are ready and thanks to an eager computer genius I have tickets to attend.

Grab coffee early before my makeup and shower and run into people I know who are already on their way to the ballpark. They seem perplexed that I am not going to the ballpark five hours before the start time as well. Some eagerness is expected; other eagerness is terrifying. This classifies as the latter, in case there was a question.

There is a towering duck boot in the form of vehicle parked on the cracked cement of Commonwealth Avenue Mall. I am seated and perplexed by the passersby who seem overly eager to take their photograph with a mud boot reminiscent of a nursery rhyme that touts an old lady actually dwelling in a shoe. No mention on whether it was a duck boot, but that’s certainly how I picture it all happening now.

Relieved for sunglasses during the Wakefield-Varitek first pitches, as I can’t explain why sometimes tears form. The tears were hidden I returned to normal quickly. You made me so very happy, indeed.

It is aggravating that Luke Scott is booed, yet most don’t know enough to boo Josh Lueke.

The game continues and I make new friends. There’s something familiar and immediately comfortable about my seatmate and I appreciate being near him. It’s unlikely he feels the same, but at least there was a moment where loneliness was not a concern and laughter was constant. It’s a hopeful feeling with a lingering yet awkward goodbye.

(Boston Red Sox 12, Tampa Bay Rays 2)

4/14/2012: It is no longer Opening Day, which seems fitting for the reunion of old friends. The seats are the worst yet, but they are in the park. Intentionally arrived late to dodge awkward hellos, mostly stemming from social anxiety and guilt over the fact that I am sometimes an unkind person.

Cheap seats and bad behavior are correlated and the men in front of us are no exception. Profanities and projectiles are thrown; vitriol is spewed at an innocent Rays fan. Were it not for the fear of having a man hit me, I would have been more brazen in his defense.

A group of Chads and Trixies are distracting with an intruding foam finger. A drunken fan punches me in the right cheek: a hazard of doing the wave. Nothing about this experience is positive until the fifth inning when my nemesis leaves. There is iced cream in a helmet, which is scientifically proven to taste better than ice cream from dishes made of Styrofoam or waffles.

Clay Buchholz can pitch and does for 7 innings. There are six home runs, five of those hit by Carmines.

Sweet Caroline is still an obnoxious tradition, but I can’t help but feel the lyrics should be changed to Sweet Valentine, bunting never seemed so good (so good, so good, so good) for just one season.

Surely Valentine will be gone after that.

(Boston Red Sox 13, Tampa Bay Rays 3)

4/15/2012: There are eggs served from a whispering waitress and a view of tourists taking a morning march on the Freedom Trail. Is there anything free about following a red brick line down the sidewalk, bending and stopping as it prescribes?

Opening Days are distant memories, and the familiarity of being at a game without fanfare is appealing. The seats are better with infinite legroom and judging by his relaxed perched on the outfield wall, Aceves is just as happy to be there as we are.

I recognize him in my section and spend the better part of the game dodging glances and interaction. Keeping score is a convenient way to avoid relating and I encourage you to do so.

The eephus pitch is beautiful in person, though the man who throws it is sweaty and reports say his past is sketchy at best.

Overdosed on sunshine, there is ice cream: again in a helmet, this time with sprinkles. A homerun lands just one section over; idiocy in tradition dictates he throw it back on the field (and is promptly escorted from the confines by security).

Another files far over the monster, easily the longest I have witnessed in person. Cody Ross is the anti-Drew in demeanor, in ability, and in socks.

Three days in a row and all of them victories.

(Boston Red Sox 6, Tampa Bay Rays 4)

Lola and I returned from a weekend of Princeton exploration, counting the cars of on the New Jersey Turnpike as Paul Simon once did. Heading south, returning to DC  felt more like a punishment than homecoming. For miles I alternated between a thoughtless gaze out of the window and watching the odometer waiting for something momentous to happen, as Lola pacified herself by chewing on the slobber-matter fuzzy beak of her stuffed duck. She’d wag her tail when I reached down to stroke her side, but she looked so satisfied I didn’t dare disturb that.

Sometimes, people and animals, they just need to be left alone.

I got the MINI Cooper after much deliberation about finances. The decision to purchase a new car proved that everything could be turned into an argument where we were concerned. It was easy for him to say he believed that I should just save my money and drive the Volkswagen until the wheels fell off, considering he had just purchased a new BMW for himself that I was never allowed to drive. Besides, he’d say, if we were going to spend money on a new car, it’d have to be a family car, which was his demented way of saying me loved me and hoped I’d stay forever.

The family car was the next step in the Guide To Suburban Bliss, a handbook that some are armed with instinctively. We had been on the path to suburban utopia for three years and were 2.5 children away from living the dream in our generic suburban home in an even more generic development. All of the streets were named after animals, a diversionary tactic to create a neighborhood out of bland houses with even blander people living in them.

The talk of buying sensible cars always came back to the long-term plan, which for him meant marriage, pregnancy, home-cooked dinners, and a spiceless life of banal suburban existence. I was a sensible family car away from creating Facebook statuses of ultrasound pictures, whether I liked it or not.

We had a white fence installed and as I sat on the back porch watching the laborers digging deeper into the earth for stability, I felt like I was suffocating. Though the finished fence was just several feet high, the house suddenly felt like Alcatraz…few would even try to escape. Those that did? They rarely survived.

And in an act of defiance, possibly my first where this relationship was concerned, I went to Cincinnati and purchased the car that I wanted: Silver with black trim MINI Cooper with sport seats, and dual sunroofs. I was already envisioning how a Red Sox sticker would look on the back window and I pulled away from the dealership in the biggest purchase of my adult life, a hatchback with an oversized speedometer: a car that was not suitable for a family, because I did not want that.

There was silence when I returned home. The car became a symbol of everything he hated about me—a list which greatly outweighed the things he loved. Some were simple: he hated when I would lose the cap to the toothpaste. Some were complex: he didn’t like my freedom or my defiance. He resented the hatchback for not having room for a car seat, and he resented me for not seeing a future with him. And two months later, MINI and me left for good.

I never felt angry. In fact, I still don’t. Disappointed that the relationship I worked hard to fix for four years had ended, and frustrated that I spent years catering to the needs of someone who never once valued the things that made me unique. My value was assessed in a battery of tests, of hoop-jumping, to prove that I loved him and my existence became an obstacle course of jumping higher, running faster, and walking a tightrope with a tank of man-eating sharks below.

Instead of leaving town immediately, I spent one more night in Louisville. I checked into the hotel where we’d spent many evenings drinking Bulleit old fashioneds in a bar that F. Scott Fitzgerald used to frequent. It’s one of the last great hotels where the detailed luxuries of the lobby bleed over into the rooms as well with rich mahogany baseboards you would never see at a Holiday Inn.

Once settled, I collected my emotions which had been strewn about for weeks, and continued my mission to say goodbye to my favorite part of Louisville: Slugger Field, where the Bats play.

My love of baseball was renewed through this rocky relationship, mostly because he did not like baseball. On days when I needed to escape, I could watch a game on television alone in the den or I could go to the ballpark. I knew he wouldn’t want to be there, he was content to stay at home playing computer games or a variety of sci-fi movies that I lump into one category, though he always corrected me because they weren’t always Star Wars. In our four years I got him to the ballpark exactly once, and I had to lie about the origin of the tickets to do so.

I walked east, snuggled in an oversized sweatshirt that was his, the sun setting on my back. The field is nestled on the banks of the Ohio River, with Louisville’s petite yet pristine skyline as it’s’ backdrop. Across the river there’s an old fish restaurant that looks like a boat that always seemed to be a place where tourists would go for pina coladas and food poisioning, though locals seemed enthusiastic about their offerings. The jingle from their commercials played in my head as the sun setting created magnificent shadows on the ballpark’s parking lot and ticket windows, making the stout skyscrapers appear like the Goliath buildings of a bigger city.

It wasn’t time for baseball yet. The gates would remain locked for a few more weeks, as minor leaguers still fought for roster spots at camp. I would be leaving the next day to figure out life on my own, missing the day in which patrons would be ushered into the stadium’s concourse that had been fashioned from an old train station. But in a city filled with memories from my relationship, from college, from even better friendships, the only place I wanted to be was inside of this stadium where I had spent countless evenings escaping from everything—schoolwork, real work, and a relationship that spent years on life support.

As the shadows darkened and the moon rose, I peeked through the windows of the once train station.  There was the souvenir shop, the vending area with their locked metal doors, and with each passing glance I said goodbye. Goodbye to Josh Hamilton and Joey Votto, goodbye to section 102. Goodbye to Louisville and goodbye to him. Realizing I was alone, both in life and in the 400 block of Main Street, I sat down on the Pee Wee Reese statue, cuddled into the S shape metal support of his left leg, embracing my last evening in a city that I would no longer call home.

The months that followed were full of tears and sometimes regret. The questioning of whether I’d made the right decision crescendoed into moments where the only solution I felt was to run back to Louisville for comfort. But in time, I was relieved to never spend another day under someone’s microscope and in turn found what it meant to be resolute, autonomous, and confident.

Four years later, my car hit 50,000 miles on the New Jersey Turnpike. Still embracing the freedom of self-possession, still making decisions that are completely my own. There’s no greater freedom than realizing life is limitless when removed from the judgment and restrictions of others.

And in four years, I have changed everything. I finished graduate school, and the MINI and I have driven to countless baseball games, including two 22-hour road-trips to spring training. The hatchback that cemented the relationships’ demise has seen me on two moves across the country.

It’s been nearly 1500 days since I’ve seen his face, laughed at his jokes, or cried from a misunderstanding. Driving through the evening, returning to the life I’ve built for myself, I felt satisfied with the distance those miles and years have created. Not just because of the relationship I once had, but because a weaker and insecure version of myself got dropped off somewhere along the trip: and I finally feel the freedom and strength that didn’t exist before, and another 50,000 miles will make that even stronger.

To set the scene, Colin Wyers (@cwyers) of Baseball Prospectus fame had an undisclosed number of beers last night, then read this article. While Colin is known for his discussions about flaws in analysis, this intoxicated monologue had elements of humor, while still making valid points about the weaknesses in the article.

While the tweets were funny, I figured it’d be best to capture this monologue in a commemorative video since  many missed the tweets as they happened late last night while Colin sat among the cornfields with just his sabermetrics thoughts and a Shiner Bock.

Thanks for being a good sport, Colin. Here’s hoping for many more late-evenings of hoppy goodness and sabermetrics. Cheers, buddy.

But there is also a playlist of songs that should only be listened to alone and in bed with blankets over my head. As an emotional girl, and someone who easily cries, it’s just for the best that those songs do not come on shuffle when in public—waterproof mascara is a lie. It consists mainly of Ryan Adams songs, songs ruined by men I have dated, and songs that have a general haunting quality to them. So I shouldn’t have clicked a link this morning containing “Blue Skies” by Noah and the Whale.

I am not a Noah and the Whale fan. In fact, I know absolutely nothing about them other than someone told me that one of their songs was once used on the OC or Gilmore Girls or Dawson’s Creek or some equally ridiculous television show I would have never watched had it aired even when I was the target demographic.

But against my better judgment, I put on my headphones, clicked the link and started listening to this song, which ensures me that the blue skies are someday going to come and life is someday going to get better. But the singer sort of whines that to me in this condensing emo mocking voice that makes me feel as though I am the only and loneliest person in the world.

And while the song is playing, I’m just sitting at my desk trying not to think (or cry) and trying to look busy even though there is no one around. So I am scrolling through old photos on Facebook and I am hit with an image that on a day like today (with  emotional vulnerabilities saddening my ear drums with songs about blue skies) I wish I could just un-see—US Cellular Field.

Spare me your feelings on this ballpark. Spare me your feelings on the fan base, its location in what you may consider (I do not) an undesirable neighborhood on the wrong side of the loop, and most of all spare me your lectures on the modern ballpark. The fact remains that US Cellular Field easily became home when I lived in Chicago—both places of which are no longer mine.

The photo I stumbled upon was from my last game I attended: a rainy evening against the Kansas City Royals. It is also the last game that I have in my scorebook—and there is a big scribble on one of the pages that is a heart, broken in half, with exclamation points done in pen so harshly that the pen practically tore through the page with its indents.

He drove five hours just to tell me he was in love with me and I rejected him hastily upon arrival.

We had met a few months earlier at a Tigers game…a Tigers meetup, more specifically. A good friend puts together this meetup for a group of fans from SB Nation each season, and it was convenient for me to come to Detroit for a weekend of past-times with strangers from the Internet. Plus, the White Sox were playing and Edwin Jackson was pitching, so it just seemed fateful to make the trip to see an old friend and perhaps meet some new ones.

The gentleman in question sat across the table from me and was perhaps drawn to me for several reasons, none of them sincere. First, I was one of three females. Two, I was likely the only one who was single. Three, I was trolling hard in my White Sox hat because it was sunny and I needed a face shield and a way to show off my adversarial nature.  I think instead of asking my name he actually asked for my Twitter name, which was sort of awkward when he immediately added me and read my timeline aloud.

I would equate the relationship that developed over the next three 32oz beers at Hockeytown and nine innings at Comerica to be largely misunderstood. His way of being kind involved making fun of Juan Pierre, Adam Dunn, and threatening to put chewing gum in my hair. Clearly young and inexperienced with women, his way of showing affection was treating me like we’d met on the playground in third grade. I was expecting him to punch me in the arm during Red Rover and kiss me.

During the game, I won a game-used ball from the Tigers (which might have been rigged through the powers of social media) so when the game ended I had been instructed to report to the memorabilia booth to wait for my prize, rather than walking the four blocks to the hotel bar where the partying would continue.

I said goodbye to the group and assured them I would catch up after I’d collected the ball, knowing that he would decide to wait for me. This was fine, because I wasn’t sure where the hotel was anyway and assumed he could impress me with his navigation skills. While we waited for the baseball to surface from an usher who snuck into the clubhouse to collect the ball post-game, we chatted about life.

Our interaction was me saying something, him agreeing, then discussing how perfect and exciting he found me. Everything I said was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.  When I told him about my career he acted as though it were important or meaningful (it is not). You’d think I had told him I could cure cancer and solve world hunger, but instead I had told him a little about the writing I do and the places I’d lived.

Some women want to be admired in such a fashion, but I find such adoration off-putting. No thrill of the chase when someone fawns over you so much they trip on the stairs in a ballpark because they are too busy staring at you (that happened). Some might find happiness with a man who is so smitten he does not see the flaws, but I find it boring and predictable. Men  like this want love to be like a fairy-tale more than a woman does—and they tend to jump from the beginning of the story to the last page of happily ever after. I am always terrified that one of these men will turn into the one who proposes after three dates—just because he really felt something.

When the evening ended, he had my Twitter name, but not my phone number. It eventually turned into the occasional gchat conversation, and when he mentioned that he wanted to come to Chicago for a White Sox game and a day in the city before the season ended, I told him that it sounded like a good time, and he should let me know when he was in town.

Sometimes  we all say things like that assuming no one will ever take us up on the opportunity. “Hey, we should totally get drinks sometime!” is the blow off phrase that I have used dozens of times when I hoped I would never have to see that person again—and I think that’s understood.

He asked if he could come to Chicago to use my spare White Sox/Royals ticket with me, and I told him that would be fine. The tickets were a parting gift from someone in the White Sox organization and they were amazing seats that necessitated company. Five hours later he showed up at my front door.

Is it really sane to tell someone they are welcome to drive five hours and sleep on an air mattress in your studio because hotels are expensive? Of course it’s not, but it’s a situation I created for myself and the time between when he left Detroit and when he texted to say he had parked at the elementary school across the street from my apartment, I found myself repeating over and over “You’ve made a huge mistake.”

But he did just drive the width of the mitten state and I should be hospitable.

I decided that we would walk to dinner, which happened in absolute silence except for the awkwardness of each others’ breath as we walked up a hill. I tried to make conversation that seemed appropriate like, “this place on the corner has terrible pizza,” and “here’s the bar where they have turtle races every Friday,” but he seemed too nervous to even realize that I was speaking to him. He was also covered in a sweat that would rival that of Kevin Youkilis in the on deck circle. There was a seriousness about him that I had not seen in our first interaction—he wasn’t going to be teasing me about Juan Pierre’s OPS or sticking Trident in my locks—he seemed pensive, as though he wanted to say something.

And at dinner, he finally said it. Tucked at a high top table in a mediocre bar in Lincoln Square he told me that he had called his friend on the drive to say he wouldn’t be at his birthday party that night because he had to get to Chicago to tell a girl he was in love with her.

Since awkward jackassery is my finest quality most days I looked him in the eye and asked if he’d be having drinks with that girl after we finished dinner—because hearing he had serious feelings for me seemed just as preposterous as letting someone drive five hours for a platonic baseball game. Sometimes no matter how large the red flags, it’s easier to ignore them and assume that there is an innocent intent behind every malicious one.

Telling a girl that you hardly know that you are in love with her is just not something that sane people do and I firmly believe that.  To be in love in the first place is not an act that is reasonable and to vocalize that on a second meeting is a committable offense. Could I have handled myself in a more adult-like manner rather than a joke at his expense? Absolutely. But, there’s only so much one can do to hide their general disgust for these feelings being vocalized—that were founded on absolutely nothing more than a few hours at a baseball game a few vague gchat conversations—that I found it impossible to take kindly to.

Over fish tacos and Abita I told him that I did not see him in that way. In fact, I hardly knew him at all. I cited a list of things I didn’t know about him like his middle name, his favorite childhood toy, and what kind of car he drove as though this was information one needed to make an informed decision on love. In my best “it’s not you, it’s me” attempt, I told him that I could not be the girl that he was ultimately desiring. That was I bad news. That I was a loner Dottie, a rebel. I told him my life was in a constant state of flux that was unsettling. I think I might have also told him that I just was content to be alone, because life is easier that way.

And after breaking his heart, I did the only thing I knew how to do: I took him to a baseball game. I gave him an out and told him that if he did not want to go to the game, I totally understood… but I had tickets and I did not intend to waste them. So we took the train to US Cellular Field, where it started to rain.

I gave him the opportunity to leave again (honestly, I wished that he would have because staring into his sad eyes knowing that I had upset his universe by not reciprocating his outburst of puppy love)  but he decided that we could ride out the rain delay in the bullpen bar.

We sat silently in the bullpen bar for what seemed like three hours, though the rain delay was only forty minutes. I watched the television, I counted bricks, I told stories about the night that we watched the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in this bar.

Met with one word answers, I felt remorseful for the fact that I ruined his weekend and assumed he’d be over it by Monday, realizing I was not the girl he was looking for. But the look on his face made me feel that he would have been happier working a shift at his dead-end job at a pool store than sitting in the basement of a ballpark. The fact that someone would rather be inundated with the smell of chlorine tablets than my company drove me to the bar for another drink, and left me searching my cell-phone for any neutral ally that might be at the game.

I have never been so happy to see the grounds crew remove the tarp from the field. Somehow I thought changing venues from the bar to our seats could change everything—that we’d magically have things to talk about after the first pitch, but it didn’t happen. I spent seven innings buried in my scorebook, pointing out things of significance to my seat mate, who was brooding and temperamental.

He did not care that Carlton Fisk wore #27 with the Red Sox and its inverse with the White Sox. I pointed to the spot where Scott Podsednik hit a home run in 2005 World Series and he liked me even less. My  olive branch offering of nachos served in a plastic helmet  was not only rejected, but spawned a judgmental conversation about ingesting carbs and processed cheese.

I have never been so unhappy to be in a ballpark before for reasons much bigger than him. I had just finished graduate school and I knew that I would be leaving Chicago if I could not find a job there. With the season coming to a close, my discomfort shifted from the awkward date I’d somehow inadvertently created for myself to the fact that the ballpark I had called home for the last three years would be changing to a ballpark I saw once a season at best.

There is a montage of US Cellular field that plays in my head. There’s a rotating cast in my favorite black uniform tops and pinstripe pants, and songs playing in my head, most of them at-bat music like Gordon Beckham’s interesting choice of “Your Love” by the Outfield. Scenes include:

My first game was on a weeknight I attended with a classmate on a whim after mentioning our professor looked like Hawk Harrelson.

Tailgates, fireworks, and first kisses.

A game with a stranger who is now one of my best friends and seatmate for countless games thereafter.

The Frank Thomas statute dedication.

Missing Mark Buerhle’s perfect game because of a work commitment.

Making cup pyramids on the patio during the 2-hour unlimited food/drink pre-game celebrations with good friends.

The Fan Fest day where I sprinted towards the outfield wall full-speed and jumped to catch an imaginary ball before it jumped over the fence.

Watching the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup on the Jumbotron.

Days alone in the Upper Level with nothing but a scorebook and journal taking notes on the game I loved so much.

The game where the White Sox were destroyed by the Yankees, messing up my scorebook twice when they batted around.

And then the montage fades and I’m left sitting in the rain with someone whose feelings I have hurt and I am watching Southpaw run on the field in his rain jacket. While the mascot does joyous cartwheels and splashes in puddles, I have a stomach ache from too much beer and memories.

I excuse myself from our seats and I walk up to the concourse, and I stand against the railing filling in boxes of my scorebook, hoping it brings clarity. I watch him in his seat, sitting alone, and I draw a picture of a heart broken in two on the upper right hand corner of my page, so I have a way to remember in which game it was exactly that I felt like a horrible person for not reciprocating feelings to a guy that I’m sure really is wonderful, but just isn’t for me.

I tuck the book into my messenger bag and pace back and forth between the Italian sausage stand and Dippin’ Dots, wondering what I can do about everything. What can I do to make the Tigers fan happy, what can I do about staying in Chicago, what can I do to make the rain stop, and what can I do to enjoy my last game at the ballpark that quickly became home and the frame of reference for which all spring and summertime decisions had been based on for three years.

I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I walked to my favorite spot in the ballpark, sat down in an available seat and snapped a photo, which is the one I saw this morning. I sat there for two innings with my feet propped up on the arms of the seat in front of me, curled into the baseball seat fetal position, in the light rain realizing that all of the things I had wanted were right in front of me (the city, the ballpark, and a boy) and once again, I messed them all up.

We’ll call him John, though that’s not his real name. John seems like a great guy from the start of the date, though I can’t say the physical attraction is strong. He works at a school, he is well read, and it’s incredibly easy to have a conversation with him… at first.

After talking for 20 minutes, John brings up the thing that caught his eye about me was the fact that I am very knowledgeable and passionate about baseball. He said, “as a big baseball fan, that’s wildly attractive to me.” When he dropped phrases like “big baseball” and “wildly attractive” I couldn’t help but get excited about the fact that I was going to have my first real face-to-face baseball conversation with someone since I moved to Washington, DC. I braced myself.

But the conversation that followed, was one of my favorites that has ever happened with someone who identifies themselves as a “big baseball fan.” I should start this by saying that I do not judge levels of fandom as some do. If your interest in baseball really is attending Fenway Park in a Beadazzled Jacoby Ellsbury shirt and eating ice cream out of a plastic helmet, that is totally fine with me. If you’d like to crown yourself the Biggest Cubs Fan Ever (!!!) because you like to sit in the Bleachers at Wrigley at drink Old Style, more power to you. If you’re a sabermetrics nerd, attend conferences, and feel like you’re going through actual withdrawal symptoms in the off-season, that’s fine, too.

John, the gentlemen in question, is a New York Yankees fan. First, he insisted there be some sort of riff between us because of the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, which I find fascinating. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve had semi-successful relationships dating Yankees fans, and I wouldn’t decide not to date someone based on the team they supported or whether or not they liked baseball at all.

But, there are a few things that happen in these situations. In fact, I actually feel bad for John. In John’s head, he assumed we could have a very vague conversation about baseball, in which we could share our mutual love of the sport. In John’s head, the conversation goes something like this:

But unfortunately for John, I am not the type that can be satisfied with vague conversations about baseball, and admittedly when I sense that is as deep as the conversation is going to go, I tend to push a little bit for my own amusement. In the real conversation, I challenge John after he admits that he has never heard of Barry Larkin. And when I’m challenged to guess his favorite baseball player, who I figure out by his clues is Don Mattingly immediately, I could not help myself but guess players that fit the criteria that he might have never heard of.

Here is the real conversation that John and I had at the bar near my office on our first (and last) date. And I’m sorry for being mean to you, John. Sometimes a girl can’t help herself.

*Gentlemen, I beg of you: if you’re trying to build a relationship with a woman, do not take her phone number and text her incessantly. Connection and interact are made best in face to face environments or by talking via the telephone. Weeks of texting is not only a turn off, but completely unnecessary…especially if you use text-speak.

Just weeks prior to Valentine’s Day, I had a skating party for my birthday.  Confident in my speed skates, I was quite the athlete. I had been less concerned about spending time with the party attendees than I had been skating fast around the rink; sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards, sometimes on one foot. It didn’t matter, I was happy to skate.

But then when a slow song came on, it was implied that you were supposed to couple up just like you would at a dance, which for most eleven year old girls IS the fantasy and purpose of skating at all. But for me, an incredibly tall and pudgy girl who was just as awkward as eleven as she is at 27, I skated off the rink and went to hide in the bathroom. I’d like to report I outgrew my fear of standing on the periphery, waiting for someone to ask me to dance, but I am afraid that has never gone away.

When the slow song of choice, “Wonderwall” by Oasis was nearly over, I emerged from the bathroom to find him waiting there for me: Paul. He spent the first two verses looking for me and he had finally found me. Paul always picked me for his kickball team first at recess, even before the other boys. Looking back, he probably had a crush on me, but I think he really chose me for my kickball prowess: I could kick the ball far, I could run, and I wasn’t afraid to throw the ball directly at someone’s face if it would keep them from scoring. Moxie has always been my strong suit.

Paul kissed me. My first kiss, actually…leaning back against the Simpsons arcade game, with the Gallagher brothers playing in the background, and the disco ball spotting the skating rink.

And from first kiss, I knew that I was in love with Paul. Well, as in love as an eleven year old girl can be. I just wanted to be near him, tell him my secrets, and swap Handi-Snacks from our lunches. So when Valentine’s Day rolled around two weeks later, I knew I would have my opportunity to tell him how I was feeling the best way I knew how: in writing.

Thinking back, I do not really remember what that note said. I’m sure it was short in subject matter with too many filler words, just like every piece I have ever written. But I scrawled his name across the front in pink marker, and tucked it into the bag with the rest of the Valentine’s cards for the rest of my classmates.

While I had been in math class, struggling to comprehend that day’s lesson (my love for math and statistics did not happen until college), I glanced into our adjacent home room to find something horrifying going on: the teachers were distributing the Valentines for us…and in her possession was the Valentine I made for Paul.

Now, the Valentine was sealed in an envelope, so that was not the issue. The real problem? I had just written Paul on the front and we had two Pauls. With any ordinary Valentine it would not have mattered, but this was a special Valentine in which I poured out the deepest emotions I had felt in my simple eleven year old heart.

Of course the teacher gave the letter to the wrong Paul.

The other Paul was short, popular, and a loud-mouth. And when he got the card that was intended for the other Paul, my Paul, he read it aloud in front of the 22 other students in our homeroom. Mortified, I spent lunch and recess in the gymnasium with my only ally: the gym teacher who was greatly interested in my athletic ability. His goal of the school year was to teach me to throw a mean slider. I stood near the foul line on the basketball court, him analyzing every nuance in my pitching delivery. Thanks to him, I am confident I could pitch overhand better than most of the guys in our small Wisconsin town playing Varsity baseball.

And the embarrassment of the Valentine to the wrong Paul never wore off. Valentine’s Day has always seemed liked a cursed holiday, even when in relationships.

In my four year relationship, I only spent two of those with actual Valentine’s Day plans. I had to work on our first Valentine’s Day. He had to be in Italy for work our second holiday. The third year we spent in the emergency room after he came home to find me passed out on the bathroom floor from dehydration after a bout with the stomach flu, instead of dressed up to go to the Oakroom in Louisville as we’d planned. And our fourth and final Valentine’s Day together, I spent locked in our bedroom crying because he had promised that we could spend the evening together, but he had clearly forgotten the promise when I came home to find that he was not there.

And though the highest of commercial holidays has very little bearing on relationships, happiness, or on being single. As most would rationalize: it’s just another day. It is just another day in which there is overexposure to caring, overexposure to emotion, and a certain contrived nature that the men will buy flowers, the women will wear dresses, and just for one day love is explicit and shoved down the throats of everyone, whether they are in a relationship or single.

I used to rationalize it was just another day until I had one Valentine’s Day that erased the embarrassment and disappointment I had experienced in the past. It went from just another day to just another day in which something wonderful happened that just so happened to be Valentine’s Day.

We had met months earlier, but our progress in knowing each other was slow, methodical, and calculated. We met during baseball season, and I was always relieved to come home and find him waiting for me, leaning against the fence in my courtyard. He was at his cutest in a Montreal Expos hat, perched on the fence reading a book about pitching mechanics. In the warmer months we spent time in outside, opening new packs of baseball cards, playing catch, and kissing quietly in the courtyard.

I had not talked to him in weeks; I had not seen him since the weather turned cold. So when my buzzer rang in the middle of the afternoon on Valentine’s Day, I was hesitant to answer. I used the call button to see who was at the door, but no one responded, I went back to my desk. When the buzzer rang again, I was annoyed and walked across the apartment, tripping over my dog that was less than thrilled about loud noises interrupting her nap, and blindly hit the button that opens the door.

And when I peeked out into the hallway, there he was. This time in a Chicago Cubs hat carrying a box under one arm, and a reusable shopping bag in the other. Dumbfounded at the mid-afternoon visitor, I just stared at him as he ruffled the hair on top of my head and waltzed by me into my apartment with the confidence of someone who actually lived there.

And while I sat at my desk working, he baked Funfetti cookies (his specialty) in my kitchen. And while the cookies baked, he insisted I look in the box.

The box contained the following: A Valentine’s Day card that played music, four packs of baseball cards, a plastic flask filled with brown liquor, two books about baseball, big league chew, and a worn out VHS of Rookie of the Year.

He told me that I could be his Valentine if I wanted to be, and I decided I would be when we compromised that the whole purpose of Valentine’s Day was just to rekindle a relationship with a close baseball buddy on a cold Chicago afternoon just before baseball season. So instead of working, there we sat: eating cookies, drinking bourbon, trading cards from our packs, watching Henry Rowengartner pitch for the Chicago Cubs.

And there was a longing for baseball, a longing for catch in the courtyard, but mostly it was a day to erase the anxiety of Valentine’s past. And more important than a commercial holiday is the realization that good things happen unexpectedly with little effort. And sometimes, if you’re lucky, there’s baseball involved.

Baseball players are paid to hit and throw, not think, and thinking is what generally fills my schedule. That and watching B-horror movies on Netflix Instant. Put me next to one of these buff soldiers of the ball field at a bar, and while they sit at a VIP table in a tight-fitting Affliction tee, I’ll be in the corner wondering if I can go home yet. Throw me out in the woods with some camo gear and while they do the huntin’ and fishin’, I’ll be trying not to have an existential breakdown at the site of a fresh kill. I may love baseball, there aren’t a ton of potential BFFs out there.

Except for Miguel Batista, candidate for new best friend as nominated by me.

Since making his Major League debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1992, Batista has played for twelve teams. The only that may match Batista proclivity for travel is his pitching arsenal. In the five years that we have PITCHfx data, Batista has thrown seven different pitches and surely did more experimenting before the technology was flipped on. His on-field boredom also correlates quite nicely with my at-home pizza toppings. Teriyaki chicken and stir-fry veggies on a pizza? Who’s going to stop me? Not Miguel Batista, that’s who. He’d appreciate the effort and creativity I put into my Boboli.

Most ballplayers follow Crash Davis’ axiom of, “Don’t think, it can only hurt the ballclub.” That doesn’t apply to Batista. Sam Walker writes in Fantasyland:

The unusual thing about Batista is that rather than trying to focus his mind on baseball, he encourages it to wander. ‘Sometimes I’m praying, singing, or meditating. Some days I’m thinking about a passage from a boo or quote that I read, ” [Batista] says. ‘When you find a piece of truth, it will attack you.’ When his thoughts are far away from baseball, he tells me, ‘that’s when things go well.’

Even while typing in that quote my mind wandered. We’re like two peas in a space pod whose coordinates are set on adventure.

But discussing Batista’s on-field skills ignore his greatest tool: imagination. Seriously. Batista, while discussing a favorite Albert Einstein quote, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

Basically, the idea out of it all was that of all the tools I have, imagination is the biggest of all. I believe that talent and knowledge has a limit… but imagination is unlimited.

No, Batista doesn’t care for the traditional five tools, his mid-90s fastball be damned. A good best friend needs to be able to join me on flights on Don Quixotian fantasy where we tilt at windmills and save fair maidens.

Unsatisfied with a life just on the mound, Batista has published two books. These weren’t autobiographical tales cobbled together with the “assistance” of a co-author. Instead, Batista released a book of Spanish-language poetry, Sentimientos en Blanco y Negro. Perhaps Batista can give me notes on my free verse that prompted a college professor to write, “please stop destroying a valid art form.”

Batista, apparently bored with poetry and his millions of dollars, followed Sentimientos with a thrilled about a serial killer called The Avenger of Blood. I highly doubt there is a whole lot of crossover material from the two books. Though reviews were unkind to Batista, it’s nice to see a ballplayer string together a few words other than “I gave it 100% and took it one day at a time.” Batista’s efforts also earned him the greatest honor that one could bestow on a ballplayer: A Washington State READ Poster. These skills as a writer will come in handy, as one of the requirements for my new best friend is that they must work on a spec TV pilot with me. Batista can choose which he wants to pursue, but we’ll either be sitting down to write a drama about a CIA agent who needs to learn to trust his heart or a comedy about a group of sexy and funny friends living in New York. At best, they’re smash hits that will redefine television. At worst, they can easily slot into NBC’s primetime lineup.

As if that’s not enough, Batista has even studied the saxophone, leading to a meeting with his personal saxophone idol, Kenny G. Since I know a few power chords and once had a terrible rock band in high school, perhaps Batista and I could team up to make beautiful music.

But the story that really makes me feel a warm bond with Batista involves my chief export: awkward interactions with other human beings. After replacing Stephen Strasburg as the starter last July and drawing ire from the crowd, Batista said:

Imagine if you go to see Miss Universe, then you end up having Miss Iowa, you might get those kind of boos.

As can only happen to a player like Batista, Miss Iowa took offense and responded:

I know I can throw a pitch or two! The question is, can Miguel Batista walk the runway in a swimsuit?

If there is one thing that I’m good at, it’s making beauty pageant contestants not like me. I even made a chart to compare our compatibility:

While choosing a President based on how much you’d like to have a beer with him is a bad policy, it’s actually perfect criterion when selecting a new best friend. Sure, Batista and I might not be best friends for life, probably because after a few too many beers I may attack his saxophone idol or he may bristle at my endless references to Batman, but that’s okay. We could give it a shot. That’s what life is about. I may never be able to throw a 90 mph fastball, but I can sure as hell be best friends with someone who can. So Miguel, if you’re in the best friend market, look me up.

(images via Web Archive of MiguelBatista.net and Seattle Times). 

Michael Clair is a comic and writer living in Los Angeles. He can be found at Old Time Family Baseball, on Twitter at @Clairbearattack, and on his couch.