Five Outs Away, Five Years Later

It was five years ago last night that the Cubs were leading the Florida Marlins 3-0 with one out in the eighth inning of game six of the National League Championship Series; five outs away from their first NL pennant since 1945. Then the Bartman Incident happened.

Less than an hour earlier, I learned something about Perspective when our pediatrician called during the top of the sixth inning. Something I guess I'd always known, but a profound and humbling reminder about What Really Matters.

During the summer of 2003, we noticed a lump on our then-two-year-old son Mitch's neck. At the time, both our pediatrician and my father-in-law, a retired neurosurgeon, told us it was probably just a swollen node; nothing to worry about. OK, sounds reasonable, but still... You just don't like finding bumps where they're not supposed to be, y'know?

Two months go by and the lump is still there. It hadn't grown, but it hadn't gotten any smaller either. Our youngest son Andy (then only four months old) had a regular check-up scheduled during the day and my wife took both boys so they could get their flu shots and have the pediatrician take a closer look at Mitch's neck.

The doctor decided to do some bloodwork and send it to the lab for an immediate work-up. We weren't sure how to take this. Had she seen something she didn't like or was she just doing it to ease our minds as quickly as possible?

So when the phone rang that night and I saw it was the doctor calling back with the lab results, I tensed up a bit before answering. As I'm sure you've guessed by now, everything was as it should be and the bump was indeed nothing more than a reactive lymph node.

I like to think I approach life with a pragmatic "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" philosophy, due in no small part to a lifetime of Cubs baseball, I'm sure. But now that I'm a parent, "the worst" is something I don't like to think about. Ever.

I bleed Cubby Blue, but the Cubs finding new and bizarre ways to break my baseball heart really is less than trivial compared to what could have awaited me on the other end of that phone call.

That's why, after hanging up and feeling a sense of relief like I'd never felt before, I thought to myself, if the Cubs manage to go ahead and lose the next two games of this series, so what?

I'd gladly make that trade again.

I still feel bad for Steve Bartman, though.