Distracted from Reeses

It was two years after that unfortunate World Series meeting against Beantown, and I wasn't feeling quite so full of zip as I had at a fresh 19. Three months preggo with our first son, and there I was again – although sizably larger – right back in front of the television, thick in the playoffs between St. Louis and Detroit … and feeling pretty thick myself.

Friday, October 27th. A fog of drowsy second trimester sludge, and I was stretched out half-asleep on my parents' living room couch while my husband was probably out babysitting the church youth group. No way was I shoveling myself out to do the same, while our boys-in-red scorched the Tigers on home turf. And yet I could still hardly keep my eyes open.

But I did see the end, the final pitch – Wainwright to Yadi – and the jumping huddle of grown men, giddy as puppies in a butterfly garden. Melting happiness: the whole city.

What did I do for days after this victory? It was Halloween by then. Normally I play the same angle as my dad, casually lobbying for overlooked Reeses from my siblings. But not this time. I all but ignored those bright orange packages because I was too busy watching every home run Albert Pujols had hit over the last six years. In slow motion. I was fascinated. The sheer power. This was Mark McGwire all over again. Hooked.

This lasted for awhile. But then I hit the third trimester, and the weight of a nine-pound baby on a five-foot-two-and-a-half, hundred pound frame was taking its toll. Distractions abounded for a first-time mom, first-time home owner. And so baseball once again slipped into the background, surfacing momentarily in the form of a twelve-inning loss to the Giants, April 18th, my first night in the hospital with our newborn son. I hadn't really slept in 48 hours, and the last image I remember from the television was a disappointed Albert Pujols jogging off the field.

This had to last me for basically the next four and a half years. Infant, toddler, preschool, pre-K, my life would continue following that line, taking in a game here and there, even a beauty of a seat on the first base line that same warm summer of the year I became a mom. But in retrospect, it was the right thing to do. Four years later, I was more than happy to make the adjustment to full-time mom, full-time fan.