Yesterday I made a day trip to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s not the proverbial “house I grew up in,” but it’s still the place to be when my family gets together. There was a turkey dinner with all of the usual side dishes, in the company of the people I spent every day of the first 18 years of my life with. It was an idyllic Thanksgiving, really.
As it often does with my family, talk of baseball filled the air. Before sitting down to eat, my brother express his disappointment with the Cubs for hiring someone other than Ryne Sandberg as their new manager. He doesn’t share my enthusiasm for Theo Epstein, so I tried to bring him around to my point of view. I don’t think I was successful, but I appreciated the conversation, anyway.
At the table, my father, his brother, my brothers and I talked about this year’s World Series at great length: the Cardinals and how remarkable it was that they even made the post-season to begin with; Game six as something we’ll never see again in our lifetimes; the benefits of the Joe Torre-sanctioned rainout for his former team; and the unlikely heroics of David Freese. We speculated as to whether Albert Pujols will remain a Cardinal or sign with someone else. And we, as Cardinals fans and/or National League partisans, took note of Prince Fielder’s home run that won the All-Star game and gave the Cardinals home-field advantage for the Series.
When dinner was over and it was time to clear the table, I had feasted on baseball as much as I had on food. And that’s something to be thankful for.
