Andy Littleton's Blog: Shorts by Andy Littleton, page 2

Second Chances

Photo of Canseco and the A’s during Spring Training at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson by Gary Lewis (used with permission)

I have no idea when or how I became a fan of Jose Canseco. My wife recently asked me why I chose him to be my favorite player. To my surprise, I had to lean against the kitchen counter and give it some real thought. After this contemplation session, nothing but a simple answer came to my mind. He was cool.

The Oakland A’s weren’t on television much in our area, unlike the Cubs and Braves, and in my younger years my family didn’t own a TV because they were out of our price range. My friend Russell, who lived down the street, had a TV and was really into the Oakland Raiders. My guess is that I saw the A’s play over at his house. But my first memory of, likely where the fandom began for me, was at the first sports card shop I visited as a kid. In one of the most prominent displays next to the cash register, glistening in an inch-thick acrylic slab case held together by four gold screws, was the 1986 Topps #20T Jose Canseco rookie card. It was $80. To a family that couldn’t afford a used TV, it might as well have been a million. There was no way I was going to own that card, but I sure wanted it. I started a binder of Jose Canseco cards and left a space for it at the front of the binder just in case. Card by card, picture by picture in the newspaper, and the rare chance to see the A’s on a TV screen all reinforced the fact that Jose Canseco was cool.

As a Tucsonan in the late ’80s and early ’90s, I had one opportunity to see my favorite player play, and that was when the A’s came to town for Spring Training. I was an autograph hound, at this point just figuring out the strategy. I showed up at the game with a cheap ball purchased from the sporting goods store and a red pen. I got a few players to sign my ball — Walt Weiss is still legible — but the one I really wanted was Canseco. At the end of the game, I joined the crowd of people waiting for the players to exit the visiting clubhouse as they piled on the bus headed back to Phoenix. The crowd surged toward Jose and I was right in the middle of it, but he pressed through us all, and he didn’t sign… not that day. This is where my vision of my hero began to crack. It cracked further when I heard about a dramatic domestic dispute between Jose and his then-wife Esther, in which he chased and rammed her BMW with his Porsche. I couldn’t believe that someone so cool, and so popular, would be unhappy. It made no sense to me then. It makes total sense to me now!

It wasn’t the same when Jose got traded away from the A’s. First he was off to the Texas Rangers. At this point I’d learned a new strategy for getting autographs: through the mail. I sent a card, a letter, and a self-addressed stamped envelope c/o Jose Canseco to the Rangers in hopes that I might hear back. I remember the day when my mom and I drove down our dusty dirt road in north Tucson, between the mobile homes, toward the community mailboxes at the end of Star Grass Drive. I had begun sending cards out in the mail to a number of players, which made mail time very exciting. I would jump out of our little blue Mazda hatchback with the key for our mailbox and flip through the envelopes looking for my previously folded ones with my name and address in both locations. There was one in the pile that day, and as I opened it my heart quickly soared as I saw an image of Jose Canseco. I crashed back down to earth when I pulled out a paper print of his image as a Ranger with a printed signature, a strip of paper saying he was very busy but appreciated his fans, and — most notably absent — was my card of him on the A’s that I was hoping to receive back with a real signature. That was the day I moved on. I kept the picture and slip of paper for some reason, filing it into my binder of Jose Canseco cards, but I decided that he didn’t want me as a fan. He was too cool, too big, and too busy for kids like me.

In my quest to re-connect with friends through baseball this year, I decided to try getting autographs again. It’s been a really fun way to jog my memory and feel the emotions we felt as kids chasing down our heroes in the parking lot of Hi Corbett Field. I had forgotten about sending requests through the mail until Facebook targeted me — due to my renewed interest in the hobby — with some groups of people who collect autographs through the mail. Part of my quest has been to give people a second chance, as I hope that friends who I’ve let down will give me one too. Shoot, I may need more than two chances! When I saw that people were sending cards, and receiving them back, from Jose Canseco, I knew I had to do it! So, I dug out the old photo and note his fan-mail team sent me and included them with a couple A’s cards of his I had doubles of, a self-addressed stamped envelope, and a new note saying that I wanted to reconsider him as my favorite player. I dropped it in the mail along with two others to Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson before I headed off for some work travel.

When I returned from my trip, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years. Did I get anything back in the mail? My heart leapt a little when I saw two envelopes in a little pile my wife had made for me on our kitchen table. In a larger envelope, I found my Andre Dawson letter, destroyed by the sorting machine and sent back to me with a note saying “received damaged.” Though that was a downer, I peeled open the first envelope to find a return from the player I was most urgently trying to reach: Ryne Sandberg. He is pretty responsive to fans but is also battling cancer. It thrilled me to see that I had reached him in time and for this little bit of evidence that he might be doing okay with his treatment. Then I peeled open the second envelope and saw the black-and-white photo of Jose that I’d seen peeking out of my envelope as a kid — except this time, it was signed in blue Sharpie. He also sent back and signed the other two cards I sent and my note, perhaps an acknowledgment that it had been received. The one thing I didn’t get back was the lame little slip of paper saying he was too busy. I’m glad I gave Jose a second chance. Life has a way of changing us, and after all the ups and downs of his career, I hope that he is more appreciative of his fans. We all change with time and reflection.

My friend Jimmy, who was there with me when we tried to get Jose’s autograph as kids, taught me something when we re-connected after twenty-five years. He introduced me to his family as his friend, even though we hadn’t seen each other in a quarter century. He didn’t say that I was his friend, but that I am. That subtlety is something I have been pondering ever since. Friendships don’t stay the same, but it doesn’t have to mean that they only exist in the past. They have shaped us and made us who we are. These people are our friends. So, today I choose to extend this same grace to Jose Canseco.

Jose Canseco is my favorite player.

https://medium.com/media/e133adb299e63cb96c977a4c67436741/hrefThe Little Man: A Father's Legacy Of SmallnessTalking Tucson Toros, Autographs, and the Quest for Friendship Lost[image error]

Second Chances was originally published in 2,000 Miles to Wrigley on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Friend of a Friend of a Friend

If this quest piques your interest, you can follow it more closely on Patreon!

(My goal in these posts is to get you thinking about the value of friendship and the ways friendships happen as I prepare for my journey to reflect deeply on friendship at the end of August)

I, and the Colorado Rockies, were in town in Denver this past weekend. In my case, to officiate a wedding. In the Rockies’ case, to host Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, and the rest of the first-place New York Mets. As is my custom when schedules align, I brainstormed who might be interested in catching a game. Who do I know in Denver?

The answer to this question presented a few options. The couple who used to go to our church being one, and I had partaken in this pleasure with them before. Last time I was in Denver, in fact, they’d been willing to drive into the city to meet me at the ballpark where we witnessed our first fan interference on what would have been a walk-off home run for the Rockies. But there was another answer: Shawn, who I’d met but don’t know so well. Shawn is close with people I know — a friend of a friend. I decided to try him this time, in hopes of getting to know him a little more.

I’d emailed Shawn and didn’t hear back for some time. I also had to make sure this game worked around the wedding weekend schedule, so I wasn’t yet able to commit. When I did hear back, I was pleasantly surprised that Shawn had a lead on some tickets from someone he knew and that he hoped to be able to secure them for us and two more. I wondered, since Shawn is a fairly connected guy, how good the seats would be. I chose not to get my hopes up too high, since the last time a friend secured seats from an athletic director for a college game, and we got our hopes up, we ended up in the far corner of the nosebleeds at Tucson’s McKale Center, against a concrete wall and surrounded by fans of the opposing team. I invited Cruz, my travel companion, and we kept our speculation to a minimum.

A day or so before I hopped on the plane to Denver, Shawn updated me. Yes, we have the tickets! His wife Diane would join us. I still didn’t know where we were sitting. Upon arrival in Denver, I met Charles, the brother of the groom, who expressed that he wished he could catch a game in town. I encouraged him to share our Uber and jump in with us. Being a Rockies game, and the Rockies having the worst record in baseball, we were sure to have an open seat near ours! I reached out to Shawn to ask where our seats were. First base side, 13 rows up… not bad at all! And Charles was easily able to secure one nearby. We had a posse and a plan.

Upon a slightly late arrival, we found Shawn and his wife under the light pole in front of the ballpark. Shawn was eager to get us in the gate, because our tickets came with a benefit. It turns out that the owner of the seats never sits in them, because he is the radio voice for the Rockies who is always perched in the broadcast booth above home plate with his computer and scorecard. With his tickets in hand, we also had access to the booth for one early inning, to watch the broadcasters work and get a photo. We didn’t want to miss our opportunity!

What Shawn didn’t know is that I am a particular fan of radio broadcasts! In my friend Sam’s home I learned, from his father Bob, that the radio is the way to go. He’d mute the WGN-TV broadcasts of the Cubs in favor of the commentators on the airwaves, who spoke far more descriptively about the game on the field, painting the picture for those who could not see what they saw. Since re-engaging with baseball, I’ve primarily listened to it on the radio — mostly Pat Hughes and Ron Coomer calling Cubs games on WSCR, but occasionally to whatever game is on at the time. Doing so has made me curious as to how they do it. How do they find their information, know when to read ads, and keep track of what’s happened throughout the game so accurately?

As we made our way up the elevator to the “press box,” we got some raised eyebrows from fellow fans who were unable to get off at our floor (minus Charles, who was intent on getting a jersey). We signed in and received our instructions before stepping right behind Jerry and Jack as they called Senzatela’s 3rd inning, in which he handled the meat of the order including a strikeout of Alonso to end the inning. They had a small TV screen, but both announcers were glued to the field of play. Shawn whispered, “I wondered how much they used the monitors… they haven’t looked at it once!” Jerry was keeping score the old-fashioned way. Jack had a computer screen full of data and information to chime in with. They were undeterred by our presence, calmly describing the action until, “They struck him out!”… the tension broke at a pivotal moment. We snapped our photos during a commercial break and got in a few words of introduction, and they dove back into their work as we made our way past the Wall of Fame and back down the elevator.

Shawn met Jerry through a friend who thought he might have a heart to help the poor, which he did. Shawn clued me in on Jerry’s transformative journey. A survivor of the United Flight 232 crash in 1989, Jerry went back into the fuselage when he heard a baby crying. He saved the child who lost everything but her life that day. Life was hard for her, and she didn’t make it to her 20th birthday. Of course, there’s a lot more to the story.

Jerry doesn’t take life — or his responsibility toward the vulnerable — lightly anymore. I felt honored to have heard this story, to know a very deep layer of a man’s life who we normally just listen to as a means to hear about a ballgame. The Rockies are no good this year, but Jerry is full of gratitude, and a little bit of it rubbed off on me on this brisk, beautiful June evening in Denver.

I’m so grateful I got to meet the friend of a friend of a friend.

https://medium.com/media/f3ea408b9d90149e86f8c2a313d24eea/hrefThe Little Man: A Father's Legacy Of SmallnessTalking Tucson Toros, Autographs, and the Quest for Friendship Lost[image error]

Friend of a Friend of a Friend was originally published in 2,000 Miles to Wrigley on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Surprise Gaggle of Floydites

If this piques your interest, you can follow it more closely on Patreon!

“I think I’m just curious.”

When Brad asked me how I end up coming up with such fun things to do when we are in the same city, I had to think for a second. He asked this the morning after we attended a Pink Floyd cover band concert at the historic Fox Theater in downtown Detroit, as I was describing the Formula 1 racing practice laps I had watched while eating an incredible breakfast sandwich earlier that morning. We were in Detroit for a ministry conference on Church Planting. How was it that I ended up getting a group of eight of us to one of the coolest concerts we’d ever been to and found myself watching amazing racing machines at close range on Detroit’s city streets? This was not my plan. So I said, “I think I’m just curious.”

That really is my role in many of the groups I am a part of. I do what I do. In this case, I took several walks by myself. Two mornings prior, I had to pay my parking meter at 7 a.m., but our conference began at 9. Discontent to sit in my hotel room (which, by the way, was a super cool one in the former Wurlitzer music building that I found by accident), I decided to explore Detroit as the sun rose and nobody was outside. I grabbed a coffee and started off into the misty morning. I walked around the sports venues and the old churches. After walking around Comerica Park, I headed over to the massive Fox Theater to get a picture of the sign as the sun illuminated the face of the building. I stood up on a street-side concrete planter to get the best angle and… it hit me. I wanted to see inside this impressive structure. The only way to see inside, as far as I could tell, was to attend a show. I watched the marquee until Brit Floyd on 5/29 at 8 p.m. flashed across the screen. Then I got on my phone and Googled where to get tickets and saw how ornate the interior is. My idea was to come alone after the conference, so I kept my Gametime app open to watch prices drop and headed back to my car. When I got to the conference, I decided to see if anybody else wanted to grab the row of six seats that had the lowest price. We found eight guys, so we grabbed a couple in the next row too. That’s how I did it. I walked around and became curious. I was curious if there was a way to see inside. I was curious to see if anybody else wanted to go.

I found the Formula 1 race the same way. I heard an older lady named “Mama T” talking about how she missed walking by the river downtown, so I drove downtown during our break time and walked it myself. While there, I stumbled upon the temporary race track in the middle of the city. I asked a bunch of random people with official-looking shirts where to go to see it for free in the morning and got good intel, so I grabbed my next morning’s coffee and a high-end “McGriddle” and strolled around while the cars whizzed by. This, however, I did by myself. So it wasn’t as special.

The coolest thing that happened was even more of a surprise to me, and it illustrates another layer of the 2,000 Miles to Wrigley quest. Music has a powerful impact on groups of people. This is well known. We experienced this inside the concert, of course. I actually had zero interest in seeing a Pink Floyd cover band. I am not exaggerating here. I have never intentionally listened to Pink Floyd and honestly assumed that this was going to be the dud show of the year. This is why I thought I might end up with cheap seats. I had no clue what I was about to experience. The guys I invited at first were in a similar boat — a little more aware of Pink Floyd than me, but not by much. Then Brad invited Kevin. Kevin, it turns out, is a huge fan of Pink Floyd. The moment Kevin was on the text thread, everything changed. He was using language that exhibited his knowledge of the band. You could sense the excitement in his tone. You could sense the urgency to not miss too much of the show. All of a sudden, we were a “gaggle” going to the concert with a “Floydite” who cared. This entirely changed the experience.

As we slipped out of the conference as it wrapped up, Kevin was out in front of us all and intrinsically pulled us along with him. He was speculating about the songs they would play. He had investigated the theme of the show and the album that was being remembered on its 50th anniversary. Once we arrived, he perched on the edge of his seat, singing along. He was looking for validation that we were all excited too, and we affirmed him in this, even though we knew little about the songs. I found myself bobbing my head along with the music, jamming my foot against the ground like it was a kick drum, and becoming increasingly fascinated with the visual effects. By the way, Brit Floyd is insanely good. The whole show had us mesmerized, and the execution was flawless. The Fox Theater was packed to capacity, and the attendees were passionate, singing along. Kevin would later gush that it exceeded his expectations and that they performed the album exactly as he remembered it. After the show, we found the last bar open in downtown and sat outside quizzing each other on our first, favorite, and least favorite concert experiences until 1 in the morning. I will remember this evening with these guys for the rest of my life.

On the way back, Sam, who I’ve spent time with at events before, asked me about this upcoming book project. As we discussed it, I realized that we had just had the kind of experience I hope to explore. A group of people came together around something we never would have anticipated. The bond we had before this experience is nothing like the one we have now, and it happened through collective energy. My curiosity activated the willingness to participate in Cruz, Justin, and Brad. Brad’s invitation included James and Kevin. Their excitement spilled over into the invitation to Ryan and Sam. Kevin’s passion for the band inspired us all to care more about the show and reflect on the music we love. We even got into a meaningful conversation with the dude who took our picture — so meaningful that he couldn’t seem to figure out how to illuminate us against the bright background of the theater. We decided that our silhouettes are his artistic way of capturing us that night. As the audience in the theater had become united by the music, so we had bonded deeply over this shared experience. I am convinced that friendships are born in these moments, which typically don’t happen by our own design.

Sam Zawada, my best friend, would have loved this evening. If God tuned him into what I was up to down here this evening, I know he cracked up laughing that I invited people to a Pink Floyd show. I was always the musical novice in our circles, listening to rap while Sam was listening to prog rock and jazz. This is the kind of show he would have convinced me to go to, and several of the best shows I ever attended were along with him and way out of my genre. I also bonded with Sam, when we were kids, in a similar way. One friend invited him to play basketball with our friends from school, and we forged a surprising connection that spanned over years. We didn’t plan to be best friends. In fact, I don’t know that we ever even tried to define that we were. We just kept inviting each other to stuff, and it happened. He played his role. I played mine, and many others came into our orbit along the way.

So, I hope I remain curious, and open to the experiences and friendships that might surprise me. I hope you do too.

https://medium.com/media/f3ea408b9d90149e86f8c2a313d24eea/hrefThe Little Man: A Father's Legacy Of SmallnessTalking Tucson Toros, Autographs, and the Quest for Friendship Lost[image error]

A Surprise Gaggle of Floydites was originally published in 2,000 Miles to Wrigley on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Minor League Memories

If this piques your interest, you can follow it more closely on Patreon!

(Note: I have realized that some folks who are following along think I am already on my 2,000 Miles to Wrigley roadtrip. I am not! The trip is set to begin on August 28th. For now, I am sharing some thoughts to help followers connect with the people and themes of the story.)

A week and a half ago, I went to my first AAA baseball game since I was a kid in the 90’s. The Iowa Cubs faced off against the Buffalo Bisons on a hazy, cool evening at Principal Park, which sits on the edge of downtown Des Moines where the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers converge. I went with Reggie, Josh, Cruz, and Ryan. Reggie, I’d briefly met once before. Josh and I had previously engaged in one brief conversation. Cruz is an intern at my church, who I know very well. Ryan and I have met in person and online several times, despite the fact that I live in Arizona, and he lives in Alberta, Canada, and we’ve discovered that we have a lot in common. Though it was not my plan, I found myself with an incredible little group that represents those I plan to meet up with in the bleachers of Wrigley Field in September!

My experience of AAA baseball was back when everything felt bigger. Hi Corbett Field in Tucson felt enormous. The crowds at the ballpark felt like…crowds. The players felt larger than life, and almost unapproachable. To secure the autographs my friends I desired required courage and risk. It was all worth the sacrifice. My friend Jimmy and I spent hours upon hours at the ballpark, often arriving as soon as the gates opened and being the last ones to leave. I still can’t believe that our parents put up with it. Getting us there and back, night after night, was a big job.

Then I grew up and major league players went on strike and it all seemed too big to connect to. The money was too big. The players, the teams, the management, the owners all seemed too big to notice guys like Jimmy and I, in a AAA town. And we had new things, bigger things on our minds. These were mostly of the female variety, though we often focused on the elements of life that led to female attention, such as securing the newest Nike Air Pennys and Anchor Blue Beyond Baggy jeans. Getting these, and the newest version of them, was a big deal to girls, or so we thought. So I stopped going to games at little old Hi Corbett, and then they built a new ballpark and nobody liked it as much. And they got rid of the Toros and brought in the Sidewinders and nobody liked them as much. I never went to a AAA game again, until this I-Cubs game with Reggie, Josh, Cruz and Ryan.

This game seemed very small. The ballpark was easy to miss, until the light towers illuminated the mist in the air above it at night. The crowd, compared to a game at Wrigley Field, was tiny and you could hear every drunken heckle in all its slurred specificity and it echoed off of the empty seats. The players, all just a tad too small-time for the big leagues, seemed to be fighting for their lives, for their dreams which seemed to be so fragile. Nate Pearson, the towering muscle-bound flame-thrower had the look of a nervous little boy on his face. He’d been sent down from the big leagues, back to AAA to learn how to throw is blazing fastball over the plate as opposed to into peoples rib cages. He was back in Iowa playing the team he’d just escaped from in Buffalo. I couldn’t help but assume the fear in his eyes, as he scanned the field, wondering if his life in the big leagues was over, and he’d be small-time from here on out.

But what seemed most impressive to me was my little band of comrades at the game. We weren’t there very long. We’d connected during a gathering of church leaders in downtown Des Moines. It was my Cubs hat that facilitated the connection. Cruz traveled with me, and was well aware of my intention to catch some baseball during the trip. He just rolled his eyes when I showed up at the airport with a newly-acquired Iowa Cubs fitted. Reggie though, was excited to find a likeminded man. A self-professed super-fan of the Cubs, he admitted that catching a game at Principal Park was on his bucket list and that he really wanted to get an early look at Moises Ballesteros, especially during his sixteen-game hitting streak! Ryan is a known baseball fan, who was about to complete his chase of the thirty major league ballparks. I knew he’d be at least interested, but he became far more into it when he learned that Bisons (AAA for his Blue Jays) were the visiting team. Josh was the surprise. He simply overheard Reggie and I at breakfast and expressed his shared Cubs fandom. Later that day he’d swapped out his attire, and was wearing the Cubs shirt he’d stashed in his suitcase.

Our gathering was priority one, but we figured we’d catch a good part of the game. As soon as we could break free we headed toward the ballpark, laughing and talking as we walked through the dark dimly lit streets of downtown Des Moines. I’d purchased tickets on the third base line, and we were excited to watch Matt Shaw work on his skills at 3rd base from close range. Ryan checked the score and informed us that we needed to pick up the pace, they were in the bottom of the 6th! By the time we reached the gates no tickets were necessary, it was the top of the 8th inning. We walked right in and sat down in the 3rd row behind home plate. Laughing at how late we were, and how we wasted money on tickets, and at how easy it was to sit in great seats in the place. Tyson Miller was on the mound for the 9th, last time I’d seen him was at Wrigley, and here he was pitching to Davis Schneider who was sporting a great mustache. Ryan, who’d watching him last year on the Jays, wanted to yell out something to him but felt embarrassed. I yelled “Stash it into right field!” And we all busted up laughing, like the rest of the drunken hecklers in the stands. He lined it left, in protest to my suggestion, but the inning didn’t last long, and the game was over.

We walked around the park on an informal tour before the stroll back through downtown to the hotel. Reggie was thrilled to have on more item off the bucket list. Ryan was surprised to seen Joey Loperfido and Schneider so up-close-and-personal. Cruz was just happy to be along for the ride. Josh was thrilled that he’d found new Cub fan connections in his ministry circles. As for me, I was relishing the experience. I knew Cruz and I would have time to catch the midday game the next day, unlike the other guys, so I would have more opportunity to see the park and players. For me, I’d gotten a taste of something hoping to experience at the end of this summer.

This journey for me is about friendship. As I’ve shared in previous posts, it begins with my friend Sam and how much I miss him. From there though, I’m thinking about how friendships spark, and sustain, and are seasonal. Some friendships are deep and long lasting, some of them are sporadic, and most of them change over time. I have no idea if I’ll ever hang out with Reggie, Josh and Ryan again, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t friends. We are, because we had a great night together at a AAA baseball game, and that’s a really big deal.

The Little Man: A Father's Legacy Of Smallness

https://medium.com/media/f3ea408b9d90149e86f8c2a313d24eea/href

Talking Tucson Toros, Autographs, and the Quest for Friendship Lost

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Minor League Memories was originally published in 2,000 Miles to Wrigley on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Final Four

If this piques your interest, you can follow it more closely on Patreon!

Four of us friends went to THE Final Four victory celebration. It was April of 1997, and the Arizona Wildcats had finally won it all. What was our goal? Get to the players! What would we do, once we got them? We had no idea. Getting an autograph was always on my mind, but not a priority for Sam and Eric. It was about proximity. Maybe they’d acknowledge us, talk to us, or want to set up a time to shoot hoops with us. Whatever the case, whatever the outcome might be…we first had to get to them.

One morning a couple years ago I woke up and let our three dogs out into the backyard. They bolted, yapping as viciously as twelve-pound fluffy white dogs can, for the corner of the yard toward the neighbor’s cat, who always hops the wall and gets away. The difference this time was that the cat leapt onto the lid of our alfalfa box in the back yard, which happened to be covered in a thin coating of the morning dew. The cat landed and it’s legs immediately flew out from under it and it slid off the lid on it’s back and onto the ground in front of our three ferocious carnivores. They’d done it. They had successfully caught the cat! And what did they do? They stood there, stunned at their success, as the cat regained it’s footing and levitated six feet up and over the wall.

The photo above captures a parallel moment in which my friends and I caught up to Miles Simon on the field of Arizona Stadium. There he was, and we had no idea what to say or do. The photographer for the Arizona Daily Star captured the moment perfectly. There we were, mouths open in adoration, as Miles scurried away with the trophy and the wave of his hand. The photographer decided he loved it. It captured the spirit of the day. Kids adoring their hero as he held the trophy they aspired to earn themselves one day. The editor admired the photo and cropped it down to size. He cropped me and the other guy off of the right side and sent it off to print. (I apparently cropped the other guy out of my mind entirely as I can’t remember his name!) Eric and Sam got to be on the front page. My only consolation was that, perhaps, I was making a ridiculous face too, and the photographer spared me.

I have never forgotten this day. I can see this photo from the paper in my mind’s eye at anytime. I wonder if I would remember it if I hadn’t been there on a mission with my friends. I know I wouldn’t have chased players alone. Even my angst in being cropped off the front page is so acute because my friends got the glory. It’s something we razzed each other about for years. They rubbed their accomplishment in my face, and reminded them how moronic they looked. Both Sam and Eric have died, and this newspaper clipping is one of the treasured memories we have of them together. I no longer care that I got cropped. I’m glad that the two of them got this moment in the spotlight, and that they got it together.

This year I filled out my second NCAA bracket of all time. I swore I wouldn’t do another after I won a workplace bracket twenty years ago. I won by choosing my favorite team names, mascots, and my bosses’ least favorite team to go all the way. Duke won it all, and so did I! This year though, as I seek to remember my friends who are gone and open myself up to the friendships before me, I jumped into two groups for the shared experience. I filled out this bracket for the sake of my friends. I picked Michigan for Eric, Ole Miss for the boss who hates Duke, the Illinois Illini for the family I met I lived with in Chicago, and the U of A as national champions for the majority of my friends and I in Tucson. It made watching the tournament more fun than ever. My connection to teams felt stronger, and the sting of defeat was a little more intense. I felt a lot of that sting this year. My bracket was a total bust!

I’m glad I participated this year, because I wasn’t doing it alone.

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Final Four was originally published in 2,000 Miles to Wrigley on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why I am a Cubs Fan

Photo of Sutter Home Park, Sacramento by Stephen Leonardi

If this quest peaks your interest, you can follow it more closely on Patreon!

The Cubs have boarded a plane for Sacramento to play the A’s. That is a weird statement in and of itself, especially since the A’s are technically not claiming a city for the time being. This second series of the season prompts me to answer a question I hear often; So, why are you a Cubs fan?

On the surface, it’s not that deep of a question. Pat Hughes and Ron Coomer often comment that Cubs fans travel well, when they explain the amount of cheers for Chicago in faraway ballparks to their radio audience. The truth is, that Cubs fans are just everywhere. You can call it the WGN effect. For years and years, the only teams you could watch on TV were the Cubs and the Braves. Couple that with the history of the franchise and Wrigley Field, and you have Cubs fans all over the place. When I wear a Cubs hat our and about in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona it’s typical to get positive comments from fellow Cubs fans. So, a lot of people are Cubs fans and have been for a long time. I am not one of those people.

Recently I was sifting through some old photos and keepsakes that my mom packed in a black and gold gilded trunk from my childhood room. She bound together my writing, artwork, and significant school projects from kindergarten through my senior year of high school. I came across a classic photo of me, doing something that makes little sense. I was playing music on a keyboard. This is not something I practiced for long. I have never been much of a musician. What’s classic in the photo is the outfit. I am decked out in OAKLAND A’s gear. Did you notice my emphasis on OAKLAND? I was a sold-out fan of the A’s. It started at a little sports card shop on Pima and Country Club, in midtown Tucson. In a thick glass case, priced far out of my range, prominent within the showcase was a Jose Canseco rookie card. I remember asking about it, and about him. He looked strong and confident, everything this skinny little white kid with misaligned protruding ears wanted to be. Jose Canseco was an Oakland Athletic.

Not only was Canseco on the team; the whole team was the epitome of cool. Jose hit massive homers, but so did his battery mate Mark McGwire and together they were the Bash Brothers, clashing their forearms together after every behemoth of a blast. The leadoff man was Rickey Henderson, the fastest man in baseball, who wore amazing shades, ran like the wind, and spoke in the third person. Who’s pitching? Well, that my friend is Dennis Eckersley. Eckersely looked as if he’d ridden a Harley to the Oakland Coliseum, shot some pool and threw back a shot of whiskey before he strolled to the mound. The Oakland A’s were legit, and I loved it. So, I bought the merch and started collecting every single Jose Canseco card I could find. One day I would get the pearl of great price, that simple black and white Topps rookie card.

This obsession with Oakland lasted for some time. I found evidence of the exact moment when it ended. In the spiral bindings my mother preserved a paper I wrote for English class, in which I detailed the Spring Training game when I finally got the chance to see my hero in person. He went 1 for 3 in the game, which I found very unimpressive. I expected a moon shot into the nearby city zoo! That though, was not the worst of it. I knew where to go, to wait for the players to exit the stadium after they showered up after the game. Getting an autograph, to me, was the ultimate fan to player connection. In my paper I chronicle the event in detail. The door opens, and there he was…strong, confident, Canseco! I approached him with tact and sincerity. “Mr. Canseco, may I please have your autograph?!” He walked right past me. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t look down. To him, I was a nobody.

This is not why I became a Cubs fan. I did, however, have a very different experience with the Cubs of that era at Spring Training. My buddy Jimmy and I compared notes while watching a game at old Hi Corbett Field (where we lived during Spring Training in March) and we remembered a particular game well. The Cubs were in town, and the stars were all leaning up against the little four-foot chain link fence that separated the field from the bleachers. The fans crowded around them and they just hung out while they chatted and signed autographs. I still have ball with Ryne Sandberg, Sammy Sosa and a smattering of other players on it. It was one of the best experiences I can recall as a kid. I even moved to Chicago! It’s the only other city I have lived in, and I went to the most magical game I have ever attended! I saw my first live grand slam, ate the best hotdog ever, and won a Billy Williams autographed ball with my $10 ticket! I bought my favorite two shirts ever, one for me and one for my friend Sam, from a vendor on the street. They simple said “Wrigley Field” and “Chicago” in yellow letters on a slate blue tee. But none of that is why I became a Cubs fan.

Sam Zawada on guitar — Flatirons Church stream

I became a Cubs fan in 2021. I had just decided to start listening to baseball games again. I had caught a few, here and there. I did watch the 2016 World Series, thank goodness! But in 2021, the world felt like it was imploding. As a leader, I felt like my relationships were all in jeopardy and I was stressed to the max. Listening to the 2020 playoffs and World Series was a nice break. So, in 2021, one day when I was doing some work on my roof, I decided to get back into baseball and the question occurred to me; You’ll need a new favorite team. I knew the answer immediately, because one team was going to help me remember and talk about my best friend Sam. That team is the Chicago Cubs. So, every time you ask me why I like the Cubs, my mind wanders back to hearing the games on the radio at Sam’s house, to him telling me I HAD to go to a game at Wrigley and make sure to get him a shirt. Every time I wish I’d had the chance to celebrate the 2016 World Series with him.

So, thank you for asking.

Sincerely, Andy

Get more from Andy Littleton on PatreonWhy I’m Driving 2,000 Miles to WrigleyThe Little Man: A Father's Legacy Of Smallness[image error]

Why I am a Cubs Fan was originally published in 2,000 Miles to Wrigley on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Opening Day

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My first Opening Day experience began a few days prior when I met a kid.

This year I decided to relive my childhood. My buddy Jimmy and I used to scour the newspaper before Spring Training or Tucson Toros AAA games to see exactly who was coming to town. We’d ride bikes or get dropped off at Mountain View Sports cards where the owner let us sit in the back room with the boxes of common cards where we’d hunch over boxes searching for that obscure name and face we’d seen on the roster. Names like Ron Coomer, whose Albuquerque Dukes card I found buried in the boxes on such an afternoon. Coom went on to play in the big leagues. He even had a stint with the Cubs and is now known worldwide as the wingman to Pat Hughes on Cubs radio. That’s exactly what Jimmy and I were hoping for! To find the guy who was obscure then, but would one day be famous. So, this year I did a little card hunting on eBay. It’s not as meditative as flipping through boxes, but it was manageable for a working adult. I made it to a few Spring Training games and a couple practices with my little security-approved clear fanny pack slung over my shoulders packed with miniature binders full of cards, sleeves, pens and a baseball just in case.

As Spring Training wound down I caught a final game with my buddy Andrew. I offered him some options; he could join me for autographs or I could skip autographs and make it a game-only day. He offered a third. He’d chill for the whole game and I could do a hybrid. That sounded good to me. When the stars got pulled in the fifth inning I made my way outside of the ballpark alone. Only a few autograph seekers were around compared to usual, and most were the type that drive me crazy. These are the dudes that used to trample guys like Jimmy, Steve and I at the games. They have binders packed with multiple duplicate cards of each player. Too many of them, and this is the worst part, seem to kind of despise the players and view their scribbled name as nothing more than a commodity. Those dudes were lurking, so I walked up closer to the clubhouse where there was one kid by the fence. Mason was a kind-natured kid with a small notebook of cards, a couple balls and a special Kyle Tucker All-Star jersey. His first question to me was which one of my cards was my favorite. I told him about the combined no-hitter card with Shota Imanaga, Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge. I had serious doubts that Pearson and Hodge would sign it. In my experience, they hadn’t been much for engaging the fans and if I didn’t get them at Spring Training, I may never have another chance.

Mason and I kept chatting. We compared notes on watching and playing baseball, getting autographs, meeting players and more. He was getting antsy, as it was time to go, but Kyle Tucker was yet to emerge. The game was nearly over, and I didn’t want to make my buddy wait around in the sun. I had only scored a few autographs for the day, most notably a really cool Julian Merryweather error card I got with Mason, but it felt like a bit of a small haul for having missed the rest of the game. Mason didn’t have a Merryweather card, so he was about to walk away with nothing. Just then an clubhouse employee emerged from the door and, instead of walking to the parking lot, made a bee-line for the two of us. It seemed odd to me. He seemed focused and I got the impression that he was going to lecture us about something. He also had something in his hands though. I couldn’t tell what it was. I acknowledged him as he neared us. He made very direct eye contact with me and quickly shoved eight batting gloves into my hands, stating intently, “These are from Ian Happ.” With that, he turned on a dime and walked away. Mason and I stared at the gloves, really unique powder blue and white and gold and red and white ones by Bruce Bolt. I divvy’d them up between us, and Mason reacted with glee, giving me a fist bump. We waited a few more minutes to attempt to thank Mr. Happ, but he didn’t emerge. With that, we went our separate ways. Mason and I had acknowledged we were both going to Opening Day, but I doubted I’d see him in the crowd.

As I drove up from Tucson on Opening Day, a few days later, I was reflecting on my friendship quest for the year and the meaning of it all. It struck me as a bit ironic that I had decided to go this game by myself, way back when the tickets were first hitting the secondary market where season ticket holders can sell before the teams open the portal for everyone else. At that point, I assumed I had class in Phoenix the same day so it made sense. The class ended up being on Zoom, so I no longer had a “good reason” to be up there. When I bought the nosebleed ticket, I also hadn’t decided to announce my memoir project on Opening Day yet. That idea had come from a conversation with my friend Pike, who had encouraged me to pick a meaningful announcement day. Since the Cubs were in Arizona for Opening Day, it felt like the pieces were clicking into place. Well, all the pieces except for one…this is a project about friendship, and I was all by myself. In moments like these, when I feel just a little bit of dissonance, I am learning to pray. I used to only pray about what seemed like big and meaningful things. These usually presented as problems in life or things that made me worry. I am learning to pray about things I wonder about or hope for. So, I prayed to God that I would know what to do at the game and that it would end up making sense and being a meaningful start to my journey. I cruised into Phoenix, nabbed my favorite parking spot early, and got myself a steak salad before heading to the ballpark.

Walking up to Chase Field, I realized that one group was lining up VERY early. I noticed a sign about being an “Advantage Member” and I asked an attendant how you know if you are one. This is the kind of thing my dad taught me to do, just ask. She had me pull up my ticket on my phone and took a look. “You are one!” she chirped. It turns out that buying that mediocre ticket on the secondary market had worked in my favor. I bought an Advantage Member’s mediocre ticket. I would get to head in with the small early crowd! Not only would I have a shot at an autograph or two, but I’d get to watch batting practice in the air conditioning before they opened the roof. I hopped in line and jumped into some conversation with the people in front of me. I felt like I was getting the opportunity to connect that I had hoped for. The gates opened, we filed into the ballpark, picked up our complementary “rally towels,” and those folks strolled off to the Diamondbacks side while I went toward my Cubbies all alone.

As I descended the steps toward the field, I glanced to my left and there was Mason! He jumped right in, “You get any autographs yet?!” I explained that I had JUST walked in as we set up shop next to the field netting. Soon his dad walked up, and Mason introduced us. His dad, Brandon, and I started talking about kids and autographs and sports in general. We compared notes on growing up around Spring Training, and going to games at Wrigley Field. We talked about how learning to engage with professional athletes can build confidence and social skills for kids. I told him about the players Jimmy and I would chase down in the parking lots of Tucson, like Alex Rodriguez, and what we learned from doing that. I told him about how Steve and I learned that you could get into a lot of places by simply acting like you know what you’re doing, like the time we got to the tunnel at a basketball game and patted Shaq on the shoulder. Brandon prompted me; “Hey, you need those guys autographs?, Looks like they’re coming over.” It was Nate Pearson! He signed my no-hitter card and, right after him, Porter Hodge came over too. I walked back over to Mason and his dad with my favorite card of the spring, singed by all the guys, and it was effortless!

Mason was dead-set on getting Tucker to sign his jersey. He saw a section of premium seats near the players entrance that weren’t occupied yet. Mason kept looking there, assessing if he could slide into them at the very moment when Kyle Tucker decided to walk back toward the clubhouse from warm-ups. The occupants of the seats arrived and filed in. A few seats weren’t yet taken. It looked like a company gathering of some kind, and Mason got a gleam in his eye. “Should I ask them if they’ll let me sit with them?” he ventured. His dad wasn’t so sure, but I threw out, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Mason knew the answer. “They’ll just tell me no!” He grabbed his stuff and resolutely walked their way, said hello to the nearby security guard, and approached a big dude in a hat. In ten seconds he was sitting with them and wearing a brand new Cubs hat that one of the guys had given him. He shot his dad and I a smile and a thumbs up. He was in! Brandon laughed and said, “Where are you sitting? If you you want, you can come sit with me.” Amazing things can begin with a chance meeting and a simple invitation.

That’s how I ended up sitting in amazing seats and having a great time a few rows behind home plate for my first Opening Day experience. Oh yeah, Ian Happ had a great game wearing the same style powder blue gloves he gave us, and the Cubbies beat the D-Backs 10–6.

Photo @darealcubszoneWhy I’m Driving 2,000 Miles to WrigleyThe Little Man: A Father's Legacy Of SmallnessGet more from Andy Littleton on Patreon[image error]

Why I’m Driving 2,000 Miles to Wrigley

Photo by Shannon Christine Photo

If this quest peaks your interest, you can follow it more closely on Patreon!

I met with a man, just yesterday, for breakfast. I described a baseball game I attended; an epic playoff game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers. As I described the guys I went to the game with, he asked about one. Was he my friend? I had to think about it for a second. He is my friend, but not the type of friend I expected to have at this point in my life. He is my friend because he’s proven to be gradually over the years. He cares about how I’m doing. He wants to spend time with me. We often connect over work, but the relationship has proven to be about far more. That’s why I invited him to the game. I knew that he’d like it. So, yeah, he’s my friend.

The man I was meeting with sat silent for a moment before easing out the words, “That’s a complicated word…friend.”

It is a complicated word. It has been especially so over the last five to six years. Our nation’s experience during and post COVID made that word even more complicated. Many friendships have fractured along the same lines as our culture. Our digital products promised us a greater experience of connectedness. Unfortunately, the exact opposite has been the result. We are isolating and disconnecting from everything but the technology. Friendship in our era is in crisis. Labels like “Friendship Recession” are being used to describe this reality. In the 90’s, about a third of Americans reported having ten or more close friends. In 2021, only 13% of Americans said that. The numbers skew worse for men than women. In 1995 only 3% of men reported having no close friends. In 2021 that number rose to 15%. 2021 was a rough year for friendships. I imagine the numbers show further decrease today.

I am not a sociologist. I am not great at friendship myself. I don’t really have an answer or a fix to this, but I have been thinking about the word “friend” for a long time. I lost my best friend Sam in a tragedy many years ago. I have missed him profoundly and wondered if I’d ever experience such friendship again for a long time. In 2020, on a walk with a co-worker, I quoted some old advice that Sam shared with me. When he asked if I’d ever considered writing about Sam, this concept immediately entered my mind. I would get some of our old friends to drive a 1971 VW Beetle to Wrigley Field with me, to see a game from the bleachers. What we would explore would be friendship. How does it happen? How does it change? How it can end, but also, how it might last longer than we can imagine.

That is why I’ll be driving 2,000 miles to Wrigley. I hope you’ll join me as I prepare, embark upon, and reflect upon this journey! Follow along and help me fund my journey HERE.

Talking Tucson Toros, Autographs, and the Quest for Friendship LostOut in Left FieldThe Little Man: A Father's Legacy Of Smallness[image error]

The Un-stable Longing for Stability

Photo by Chua Bing Quan on Unsplash

A major theme I have noticed over the past few years, is a deep longing for stability. This is a cultural longing. It rises up in popular culture in aesthetic trends such as maximalism and grandma chic. Movements like these exhibit a longing for tactile permanence, abundance, or reminders of a simpler time when you could depend on finding grandma in the same-ole-chair. The textures are soft and inviting, the items are time tested and patina’d. This is also a religious cultural longing. It crops up in the movement of young men into the more demanding and ancient forms of church, such as Eastern Orthodoxy. It also shows itself in the fact that women have reversed the long trend of being the primary churchgoers and are seeking out the safety of being with close friends over the fluctuating environments of religious communities. It is a political longing, exhibiting itself in the embracing of perceived confidence and dominance as opposed to the slow negotiation required to live a life of love and character within a diverse community.

I wish I could say that our church was the fortress of stability in a chaotic culture. Sadly, it is not. The truth is that it is full of people looking for stability in one another. Just like a marriage, a healthy church cannot be composed of members who are dependent upon one another. Rather, a stable church or marriage emerges when the members are jointly anchored to that which binds them together. Mission Church is a beautiful expression of the body of Christ, but it is not stable enough to anchor a soul. We specialize in engaging with unstable people who are looking for a home. This means there is ample opportunity to experience instability. This leads us to continually return to the Rock on which we stand, and without whom we are washed away.

Even with that being the case, we have seen an influx of people seeking a faith that is ancient (as opposed to new and trendy), grounded in an authoritative text (as opposed to depending upon a charismatic leader) and anchored in the transcendent (as opposed to simply being a gathering of good moral type folks). This is not surprising in the midst of increasingly destabilizing times. We are learning to adapt to this by embracing more regularity, repetition, and conveying groundedness in Scripture and the Church of all times and places.

I expect the instability of our time to continue to wreak havoc on our culture. It always does. But I also expect some people to grasp for truths, communities, places, and people that seem stable when all else feels like shifting sand. This is both a challenge and an opportunity. In such times, people will grasp onto destructive and demonic ideas and institutions that offer a false claim to safety from their fears. The demand that other people satisfy the longings of the soul will be intense. The church’s opportunity lies ahead, right in the midst of this reality. If the Church will rise and point people to King Jesus and his Kingdom that cannot be shaken, I believe that we will witness renewal and the new life of faith in our midst. We must make sure the revival is life in Christ. We must guard our hearts and pray, lest we ourselves stray and seek stability outside of our Savior King.

Andy Littleton is the pastor of Mission Church in Tucson, AZ. He also co-owns a small retail store and serves the cause of developing local mission ideas through Resonate Global Mission and Infuse.Watch What You Say About ChurchWell-Equipped Christians are Checking Out, Right when Churches Need Them MostChristian; Your “What’s Next” is Impacting How You Feel About Current Events.[image error]

The Un-stable Longing for Stability was originally published in Dispatches from the Outpost on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Watch What You Say About Church

Photo by Stephen Andrews on Unsplash

So, how’s…being a pastor…going?

The bubbly and quite curious hairdresser became hesitant. She asked what I did and when I mentioned retail she nodded with a smile, but when I mentioned being a pastor she seemed to tense up a bit. I told that it was a unique job but good, overall. She asked if I did mostly Sunday stuff. This is a question I get often, usually phrased, “So what do you do, other than Sunday stuff?” I quickly told her about the planning I do, the kind of people I meet up with, and that helping steer a community of people from widely different backgrounds is exciting and challenging at the same time. I could tell this was a slightly uncomfortable topic for her.

“My sister goes to church.” She interjected.

“Oh, really. Do you have church background?” I asked. This is my standard question when I can’t tell.

She told me that she didn’t. Baptized, but nothing since. Her sister though, got involved in church on her own and it was deeply meaningful and personal to her. Trouble is, she chooses to vent all of her frustrations to her sister who doesn’t follow Jesus. She unloads about the pastor’s frustrating particularities, the stress of doing all the work when no one else is willing to volunteer and about the various conflicts between people in the church. The hairdresser’s final quote was telling.

“Church sounds like a terrible thing to do!”

I did my best to not put down her sister’s church, while also mentioning that there are some really cool things that happen in churches too. I told her about some sweet things happening in our community. The truth though, of course, is that every church is full of the same kind of stuff her sister vents about. They are full of people in process; people who desperately need grace. So I turned the conversation back to her and her career. I learned about how she got into cutting hair and why she likes it. She told me about her family and how she feels like she has a lot to learn, and could use some support. I couldn’t help thinking how much she’d benefit from a church community.

Walking away, I thought about the impact it has when we air our grievances about our churches and other Christian communities. In the minds of our family, friends, and neighbors we may seem to be speaking for the faith as a whole. Even though her sister was just looking for an outlet to talk about her experience at a church she clearly loves enough to serve wholeheartedly, she ended up leaving the impression that “church sounds like a terrible thing to do.” I’m all for being authentic, but we also ought to be wise. So I apply this to myself and recommend to you; Watch what you say about church! People really are getting an impression.

Andy Littleton is the pastor of Mission Church in Tucson, AZ. He also co-owns a small retail store and serves the cause of developing local mission ideas through Resonate Global Mission and Infuse.The Church Needs Missional ProfessionalsChristian; Your “What’s Next” is Impacting How You Feel About Current Events.Well-Equipped Christians are Checking Out, Right when Churches Need Them Most[image error]

Watch What You Say About Church was originally published in Dispatches from the Outpost on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.