The House That Griffey Built

#24 decided he was done today. He wrote a statement to be read to the media, and quietly hung up his glove and his cleats. There was no weepy press conference. No fanfare. He simply decided he was done.

Smiley texted me right after the news became public. "Are you sitting down? Griffey retired." I dropped my phone and ran to the computer. I couldn't believe it. See, when other heroes from that '95 team retired, they had a swan song season. Baseball got to say goodbye to Edgar Martinez in fine fashion. He received standing ovations in every ballpark the Mariners traveled to. Griffey was just done. The joy had gone out of the game for him -- easy when you're hitting below .200 and have lost all your at-bats to the hot hitting Mike Sweeney. Good for him for knowing when to stop, and preventing any more awkward situations. Seeing an aging superstar lose his abilities -- it's just so sad.

But The Kid is no longer playing baseball. And I thought we were going to get a chance to say goodbye. He wasn't going to be at the ballpark tonight, but I knew there was something I had to do. It wasn't a choice, really. I had to go that game. I had to sit in The House that Griffey Built and pay my respects in the only way I know how -- by watching Cliff Lee pitch one helluva game ending with Ichiro singling the winning run home in the bottom of the 10th. I texted all the baseball fans I knew -- people who had grown up with Griffey and the Mariners, people who live and breathe this beautiful, beautiful game. Ashley, Brian and I dropped everything. We changed our plans to sit in Griffey's House, Safeco Field, and talk baseball. It was the only way to pay our respects to The Kid.

I don't know if I can really put my finger on why I love baseball. It just kinda snuck into my soul one day, likely during that amazing 1995 season when Seattle went baseball mad. I was thirteen -- tall, gawky, and very awkward. I've always gotten into trouble for saying what I think and well, that didn't make me very popular in middle school. I was socially awkward -- still am, in some respects. But watching baseball changed all that. You really could taste the excitement in the city. Seattle was on fire, and all people could talk about was baseball. I watched and listened to the end of the '95 season and to all those playoff games like a girl possessed. I was hooked on the excitement, the frenzy, and the beauty of it all. And I had a Walkman. So I was the only kid on the bus who could listen to each game. I gave running play-by-plays, and for the first and only time in my life as a student, I was popular.

When times are tough, and I am under stress or incredibly sad, I go to a ballgame. And when I am joyful, dancing, and utterly in love and at peace with the world, I go to a ballgame. Baseball provides me with stability in an oft-unstable world. So many things have caught me off balance this year -- the end of a long-term relationship, the realization that my career path was not fulfilling me, the decision to become a teacher, and the negotiation of all these transitions. In baseball, there are always 27 outs. There are always moments when a player's grace just blows you away. And there are always stories -- the fables true fans tell about players, ballparks, myths, curses, and the like. For Mariners fans, we still have Hall of Famer Dave Niehaus, even though he is now missing home run calls and sometimes thinks the Mariners still play in the Kingdome. Through Niehaus on the radio, I can imagine long fly balls belted deep down the left field line. And I can still hear and see Griffey sliding into home, beating the Yankees in 1995. The Kid is intimately connected with The Double and the ensuing pigpile on home plate. I jumped ten feet in the air, just like Mike Blowers. Griffey saved baseball in Seattle with that slide. Edgar's Double was the Shot Heard Round Seattle. Griffey's slide built Safeco Field.

I'm 28, and it feels like my childhood just died today. For as long as Junior was playing, there was a part of me that was always 13, banging pots and pans together while running up and down my street. There was a part of me stuck at 6, a voracious reader catching bugs in the yard and throwing water balloons with friends. There was a naive 22-year-old writing her bachelor's thesis about Mariners fan culture and community who couldn't wait to get out into the adult world. And, too often, a weary 28-year-old who lately has been feeling like her carefully constructed life has been falling apart, and who has realized that the adult world isn't all it's cracked up to be. Everything she thought she was and would be -- it's all changing around her so quickly, too quickly, whirling and spinning out of her hands. The life I have is not the life I want, and I'm coming to terms with that and changing it so my reality better matches my dreams. Baseball, with its 27 outs and its moments of grace, gives me a much-needed center. As long as The Kid was playing, I could still be a kid too.

In baseball, as in life, there aren't really any do-overs. It's not like football where a play can be whistled dead and the team can play it again. Refs often make bad calls and make huge mistakes. Season after season, year after year, there are 27 outs. There are nine innings. And the teams keep playing until somebody wins. As much as I want a do-over right now -- as much as I want a time machine to go back to when I started graduate school and tell 23-year-old me "don't do it. This is not the right thing to do. You're going to be so unhappy," I can't. With Griffey's retirement comes the realization that I don't have any do-overs. And as much as it seems like the friends around me have it all together (it's so hard when you're one of the only grad students in a group of people who seem to have it all figured out), they don't all the time. The life I thought I would have is not the life I have now, but I have the power and the ability to change that. Just as Griffey changed his mind about baseball, I can also change my mind at any time.

There will always be 27 outs. There will always be heroes and villains. We baseball fans will always have arguments about the designated hitter, and about the merits and demerits of various players. I will always loathe the Yankees. This beautiful game will be always be at the core of who I am. And I look forward to telling my grandchildren about the time Edgar Martinez hit that perfect double down the left field line, and about how Griffey sprinted from first to home. I will sit in The House That Griffey Built tomorrow. I'll be there for his retirement ceremony. I will be there when he is inducted into the Mariners Hall of Fame -- I'll camp out to get tickets if I have to. I'll be there with friends who are true blue Mariners fans -- people to whom all I have to say is "I need to go to the game, guys," and they know. They understand. For their own personal reasons, they've come to love the game. And when that game calls each of us, we go.

Good luck to you, Ken Griffey, Jr. Come on up and see us in Seattle sometime. We miss you already. Thanks for helping to construct a place I can go when I need to escape life's peaks and valleys, laugh with friends, and watch 27 outs of the most beautiful game humans ever created.