Three years ago this past Thursday, I began the 1991 APBA baseball replay I'm currently rolling and will probably be involved with for a while. If I have time after work tonight, I'll roll game 1,414 in the season, Milwaukee vs. Texas, and be about two-thirds through the season. It's the slowest I've ever progressed in a replay and I have plenty of reasons.
It's called life.
Since this season kicked off, I found love in northern illinois, lost a job I had for nearly 20 years, got two more jobs, bought a new air conditioner for the home, bought a new car, went to the emergency room for a health issue that's still giving me issues and got older.
It's part of the journey that these season replays take us on. While we roll the games and look at the past, we move into the future each day. We recreate something that has happened before as we play the games -- in my case something that occurred 27 years ago -- while forging ahead into new events. And maybe, somewhere down the road, I'll be replaying the 2018 season, replicating my future, which by then has become the past.
I tossed the first game on Aug. 16, 2015, in the quietness of my still home. It was a Sunday and I had spent the weekend getting the lineups and schedules ready. I planned to toss a few games to kick off the season before heading to bed.
A week later, I called a girl who lived just north of Chicago who I had met through a mutual friend. A month later, I drove up there to meet her and promptly fell head over heels. I drove up there 17 more times in about eight months. In June 2016, less than a year after this replay began, she moved to Arkansas with me. Suddenly, the games took a back seat. I had a life.
A month later, the air conditioner in the house conked out. It was a great way to welcome a northern girl to Arkansas: turn off the air and let the summer heat take hold. Then, two months later, I got pretty sick and ended up in the emergency room where doctors talked about kidney infections and possible cancer and organ issues and all. I've gotten much better, but there are still days when I feel pretty rough.
A car I had for eight years finally gave up the ghost and died in October 2016. Must have been all those drives to Chicago.
A year later, I was laid off of my newspaper job and took a huge financial punch to the gut. Since then, I've found another newspaper gig and I have a second job to help make ends meet. I've had nine days off since Feb. 24 and I feel that. I have learned to really, really hate the alarm clock, having to rely on to wake up each day.
But the game is still there and I can find some time to keep rolling. I can get a quick game or two in while Holly does the make-up and hair routine in preparation for going out. (Okay, guys, you know what I'm talking about. I can probably get a complete World Series replay done in the time it takes her to get ready)
Tomorrow morning, we'll load up head to Chicagoland again to visit my sweetie's mother, my 25th trip there since beginning this replay.
When I return, the game will be on the table waiting, just like it was when I came back from my first trip up there a month after I started the replay.
This season will be finished eventually and then 1947 is up next. I sound like I'm trying to knock out these games as fast as I can, and on one level that's true. I know they say that the journey is half the fun to the destination and I agree. This 1991 season, like all I've done in the past, is enjoyable. But as I get older the realization of mortality sets in more and I know I have many, many more seasons I'd like to do. And when I do replay those seasons, life will continue to happen.
