Steve Clevenger, the nicest guy in sports

When baseball season started April of 2012, I didn't care. If you know anything about me, you would know how out of character that is for me, but I had had a particularly bad year after many personal and professional failures, and baseball seemed like such a small thing. As a mental health professional, I know the signs to look for in a clinically depressed person, and I had all of them. I had very little will to live. I know I sound overdramatic, but believe me when I say that it was an incredibly difficult year with no joy in sight. It took every ounce of strength within myself to get out of bed in the morning.

But my friend Angela was tenacious. "How can you miss opening weekend?" she asked, incredulously. She had already bought my ticket, and she demanded that I go.

"Fine," I said, and tried to muster up enthusiasm. But I was sure this would be my only game. I could say goodbye to Wrigley, goodbye to baseball. Most of my favorite players from 2011 were gone, anyway. On the way there, I just told myself that I could leave early and crawl back into bed soon enough.

But Angela's enthusiasm was bubbling over that first game of the season for us. We stood by the third base side, like we always do, and she called out to the players she knew. It didn't feel the same for me, but I played along, for Angela's sake. And then she saw Steve.

"Steve Clevenger!" she shouted to a player I had never seen before. "That's Steve Clevenger. I met him at Cubs Convention. He's the nicest!" she said to me. I remembered the name and was pretty sure he'd been an All-Star while on the Cubs AA Tennessee Smokies.

Sure enough, he came over, and there was something about his big, goofy smile that I immediately loved. He greeted Angela like she was an old friend, claiming to remember her from the Convention (maybe he did, but we soon came to realize that Steve pretended he remembered everything and usually didn't).

"And this is my friend Alex," she said, and Steve greeted me like I was someone famous that he had been dying to meet his whole life. I came to find out that Steve treated everyone like that, like it was his honor to meet you and that you were a very important part of his life. And always with that same goofy ear-to-ear smile, blue eyes shining like it was the best day he had ever lived. He was a catcher, backup to Geovany Soto, so his playing time was sporadic, but when he played, he played his heart out. He was the kind of guy that you just knew really realized what a gift it was just to be up in the show.


(here is us that first game)

Needless to say, that was not my last game that season. It wasn't even close. I kept coming back to Wrigley because I wanted to see Steve. He made me feel like being at the game helped the Cubs play better. When we left the ballpark at night, we usually waited to say goodbye to Steve in the parking lot, and he always said, "I'll see you guys tomorrow, right?" as if we really NEEDED to be there. And if he knew he was playing the next day, he would say, like a middle school kid, "You guys GOTTA come tomorrow. I'm playing!"

We loved Steve. We made so many signs for that guy. We came up with the catchy slogan "Fear the Clev" and tried to get it trending on twitter. And Steve got off to a great start, but then he strained his oblique and he was on the DL for a while. Through it all, he stayed positive. He would tell us that he was feeling better every day, and I'll never forget the day he jogged over to us and said, "Guess what? They let me swing today!" The joy I saw on his face from the simple task of swinging a bat was indescribable. He just really loved the game.

Shortly after he was activated from the disabled list, Angela and I drove to Milwaukee to see the Cubs play on the road. When he saw us, his face lit up and he came running over and hugged us. "What are you guys doing here? That's so cool that you came all the way here to watch us!" He made us feel so important and appreciated, as if we had done some huge sacrificial pilgrimage barefoot over broken glass from Alaska to watch the boys play.


(here is us in Milwaukee)

"You're so happy all the time," I told him once. "No matter what's going on in your life or how the team is doing, you just keep going."

"Why be miserable?" he asked, then ruffled my hair with his mitt and ran off to shag balls. And that "Why be miserable?" mantra seemed to define everything in his life.

When he came back, his numbers never returned to where they had started, but his enthusiasm did. And defensively, there was not a better catcher on the team. Dave Kaplan from Comcast and WGN kept singing his praises, calling for him to be the Cubs everyday catcher, but even after Geovany was traded, the Cubs split time between The Clev and Wellington Castillo. But it didn't matter how much playing time Steve got; he was always smiling, and he gave the game everything he had.

I made a Clevenger t-shirt,

a song for him ("Fear of the Clev" to the tune of "Eye of the Tiger") and demanded that everyone Fear The Clev. It was so interesting to watch him turn from the guy who was always laughing, head thrown back in a guffaw, into a fierce competitor. I saw him, red-faced, cheek full of tobacco, cuss out an ump and get ejected. I watched him get into a big scuffle with the entire Washington Nationals team and get ejected. I supported him through slumps and fights and, really, I was never disappointed. While he didn't get enough playing time for my liking, he seemed to get the hits that mattered, the hits that were needed when everyone else on the team just wasn't producing. He played his heart out as if every game was game seven of the World Series, rather than just another game to a 100+ game losing season.

(here's me with my song for him)

Everyone knew he was my favorite player. My dad called to tell me Steve had hit his first home run. My friends texted me to tell me they had met him or they saw him on TV. And I wasn't the only one who loved him. Sports commentators raved about him. Even the Milwaukee sports people called him a throwback to a better era of catchers, when the catchers gave their all on the field and at the plate. You just knew this guy was going to succeed, and you rooted for him, because he was such a nice, nice guy.

He took the time to explain baseball terms to me (he was the first baseball player I felt comfortable asking without feeling stupid), terms like "designated for assignment," and "put on waivers." And he never made me feel stupid for asking. And he also let me try on his catcher's mask.

On a hot day in July, he gave Angela and me his batting gloves. He promised us bats, too, but on the last day of the season, he couldn't find us, so he gave them to some random boy. Stupid random boy, who probably didn't even know who Steve was. I would've put that bat proudly on my mantle. I would've told my grandkids about Steve Clevenger, the nicest guy in sports. I would've explained that Steve didn't start out as a catcher, that he was an infielder who turned himself into a catcher after hearing what a hot commodity left-handed-hitting catchers were, a quicker route to the bigs. I would've told him how Steve signed for every single person who asked, even after a game, even when his eyes were tired and his spirit was a little down.

(here's us with our batting gloves from Steve)

On one of these many occasions, I saw his beautiful fiancee Tiffany standing by. "I'm so sorry you have to wait," I told her.

Tiffany smiled sweetly and said, "Oh, ah don't mahnd," in her adorable Southern drawl, and it was really in that instant that I knew that Steve had found himself a girl as lovely as he was.

When I got to Cubs Convention in January, I turned to Angela and said, "I won't scream when I see Steve," but literally five seconds later I saw him, and I screamed, and when he saw me, his eyes crinkled and he smiled that big Steve smile.

I asked him, "On a scale of 1-10, how much did you miss us?"

"Definitely 10," he said, and I believed him.

(here we are after seeing him for the first time in forever at Cubs Convention)

He and Tiffany talked to us for a long time in the hotel lobby, and not just about baseball. About wedding plans and movies and music. We saw him a lot during the convention, and he always greeted us with hugs and smiles and what-are-you-guys-up-tos. He left the Convention a day early to watch the Ravens in the playoffs.

I made sure I saw him at every possible autograph signing. Here I am enthused to see him signing autos:

"Those are my boys!" he said, proudly sporting his wind pants and New Balance t-shirt. Unlike the other players, Steve's wardrobe did not betray his salary. He dressed like a college baseball player who was always taking one last set of balls in the cages.

(here's after he told me he was leaving the Convention early for the Ravens)

Before he left, I told him I was scared about his playing time with Wellington and the newly-acquired Hector Navarro.

"Alex," he said, completely serious. "I'm not even a little worried. Look at me. No worries."

Because all of the games I had tickets to were postponed, I didn't get to see him play for a while, but I did see that they were using him in the infield. When I eventually did see him, he greeted me with, "Did you see me at third base? Did you know that's where I used to play?" It was like talking to that excited middle-schooler again, and I loved to see it.

The first game I went to in the 2013 season, Steve didn't come in until he pinch-hit with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. It was like a movie, I thought, and maybe Steve will save the day.

Except that, when he swung, he suddenly went down hard, as if someone had shot him. And he wasn't moving. I ran down as far as the ushers would let me to see what was going on as the coaches and trainers rushed the field. Word traveled that it was his oblique again. He was carried off the field, and I stewed in my worry until I saw him limping to his car after the game. "How do you feel?" I yelled to him. He responded with two thumbs down.

The next game I went to was rained out, but I talked to Steve in the pouring rain as he waited in his car for Darwin Barney. He told me this was his other oblique, and that he would be out for 60 days. He seemed sad, the saddest I'd ever seen him, and he even agreed to let me make him cookies, leaving his healthy diet for a few comfort-calories.

"Just tell me. Will I see you play this year?" I asked, and he just shrugged and smiled weakly, and my heart sank.

A couple days later he was sent to Arizona to rehab, then to Iowa, and he was tearing the cover off the ball. He seemed so much better. There was talk of his imminent return to Wrigley, so I put off the Iowa road trip. Except he never came back. Yesterday he was traded to his home team, the Baltimore Orioles. I received seven text messages and five phone calls telling me. My heart sank. Because he would be starting in their minor league system, I wouldn't even see him play in Chicago.

Of course, a side of me is happy for him. How cool to play for a contender, and to play for the team you grew up rooting for! But Steve was the reason I gave so much money to Wrigley over the past year. He's the one who made me love baseball again, and, ultimately life. Focusing on him helped me stop focusing on myself and all of the things going wrong in my life. After all, "Why be miserable?" If the Cubs were smart, they would encourage all of their players to be as friendly and approachable as Steve. It's players like him that keep fans coming back to the park, even when the team is losing. The Cubs should give him a commission from all the money he brought in, making little kids' days by signing autographs and taking photos. He posed for so many pictures with me, at first posing like a tough guy, but eventually smiling like the happy-go-lucky guy he was.

It's always hard for me to lose a Cub. But to lose this Cub? Almost unbearable. I never got to say goodbye. Steve, if you ever read this, know that you changed my life. You brought me such joy, and I will miss you more than these words describe. And know that, no matter what team you play for, I will be your number one fan, cheering loudly with my homemade signs and t-shirts, and wishing you still wore Cubbie Blue.

Here are some more pictures of us together. I have about eight million pictures of him playing, but I'm too sad to go through them.

Oh, we Cubs fans are so cursed, getting attached to these great guys, only to get our hearts broken at trade deadline. I'll miss ya, Steve. And I'm pretty sure you saved my life. You definitely revived my love for the greatest game ever, and for my lovable Chicago Cubs.