This time… it’s personal.

McCann was my dad’s favorite player.  When we used to watch the Braves in his later years, he would he sit up a bit more straight, focus in tighter, when McCann was at the plate.  I really wish he would have lived long enough to see McCann take on Carlos Gomez, and win, in the infamous third baseline stare down.  And if I am being greedy, I wish he were here right now to go to breakfast with me and represent the best of humanity at the buffet as I represented the guy sitting next to such a person.

There’s really nothing positive about him being gone, but at least he didn’t have to see McCann in Yankee pinstripe.  He wouldn’t have heckled, he wouldn’t have belittled him, but I know he would have trouble with it.  I have trouble with it. If he had to leave at all I was hoping he would go the American League, but not THAT part of the American League.

Yesterday was my first opportunity to see him play, albeit in a spring training game vs. the Braves, his old flame. The first time he came to the plate, I just stared with no single emotion taking over from the countless others.  While I was processing that, a Braves fan yelled “TRAITOR” a particularly quiet moment. A mixture of uneasy laughs and easy laughs followed.

But…he looked…so… earnest.  Like he always has.  It was still the same guy my dad loved watching catch and hit baseballs. More importantly, he seemed pretty friendly with his old teammates, who, unlike the betrayed heckler, seemed pleased to see him, whatever his fashion choices.

The second time at bat, the heckler used the same “TRAITOR” joke- this time with less appreciation from the Braves fans. It’s like when the nerd gets teased in junior high- you go along with it by laughter, just to avoid getting the same abuse yourself.  But after awhile, you take up for the nerd or at least stop piling on.

Not that McCann is nerd.  In fact, he can be a hothead ready to defend the honor for a slighted pitcher. If I can only stick one label on him, it’s not hothead.  It’s ball player. The guy is a great ball player.  And, BAM, there goes a wobbly drive to right field that results in a double.  Not pretty, but it’s true in it’s direction.

When I was leaving the game I walked out the backside of Steinbrenner Field and saw a guy running laps around practice park.  It was McCann.  I stopped, admired, and forgave- and even forgave the folks who let him get away.

On the long, hot walk back to the hotel I also silently forgave one Mark Teixeira, who was my mom’s favorite.  She never saw him switch to the dark side, either. Like dad, she was also painfully absent at breakfast.