Are You Jason Motte?

My son was only four years old. He didn't know anything about baseball, and maybe he didn't care. I couldn't tell yet. But that didn't stop me from buying us a weekend pass to the Winter Warm Up of 2012. Why wouldn't I? The city was still crazy over its 2011 World Champions, and I wanted my son to have a taste of it, even in a small way. So I also purchased a Lance Berkman autograph ticket.

It was mid-January. Hence the necessary “warm up” in the title. I already had a Lance Berkman shirt, two of them, in fact. But I don't know – there's something about wearing someone's name when you're going to meet that person that somehow reeks of … weirdness. I passed and wore a red sweater instead. So on that cold Sunday afternoon when my husband and preschooler accompanied me to the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch, my son was the only one of us in Cardinals get-up.

We slipped on our passes at the desk, picked up the autograph ticket, and found our way upstairs into a packed line trailing outside the large ballrooms where baseball royalty waited, Sharpies at the ready, and probably none too happy to sign for two straight hours.

“Hey,” a certain gentleman turned around to my husband as we waited in line. “You look just like Jason Motte.”

A few minutes later, someone else noticed it.

“You'd better be careful. People are going to start asking for your autograph.”

Suddenly, my husband was becoming that hesitant moment where you're pretty sure you've just seen someone famous, but you're not one hundred percent, so you don't do anything about it. There is a strong resemblance, I admit. The build, the beard, the glasses, the beard.

But for the moment, I was distracted from the idea that my husband was a look-alike to the Cardinals' closer. I was more nervous that I thought I would be. I looked around as we entered the doorway. It was Matt Holliday's 32nd birthday. I saw him across the room already signing baseballs, wearing a skullcap despite the warmth of the large room. Maybe it wasn't that warm; maybe it was just my nerves. Almost definitely the nerves.

And then, there he was – Mr. Lance Berkman, the Puma – himself. Sitting high up at a table in a respectable blue-gray shirt, slightly graying, and polite as usual, despite the autograph session only just beginning.

“How ya'll doin'?” he asked, as Gus handed him the baseball.

Four seconds later he gave it back, and I can still see him saying with a nod, “Thanks. Thanks much.”

And that was it. I left feeling like we had just met the King of England. A Texan king anyway. And what do you know, that baseball turned out to become one of my son's prized possessions. Two and a half years later and the signature is already starting to fade a little, even in its special fade-resistant box, kept out of the sun. But I'll always remember the four seconds it took to sign it, and the friendly smile of the Texan/St.-Louis switch hitter who helped me return to baseball.