Goodbye to the Most Beautiful People in the World

Last year, Angela called me and told me I needed to come see the Cubs new outfielder, David DeJesus. "He's like a model," she said. and it was true.

I have long believed that all baseball players possess a single gene that not only makes them good at baseball but also makes them good looking. Think about it--think about all the bajillion baseball players that have ever lived, and you will have trouble coming up with a starting lineup's worth of uglies. Lou Gehrig, with his massive dimples and broad smile. Ted Williams, the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. Jackie Robinson, with movie star good looks that make Denzel Washington look plain.

But David DeJesus was in a class by himself. Dark hair, dark eyes, deep dimples and a perfect, bright smile, perfectly sculpted five o'clock shadow beard. So handsome. Like, drop dead gorgeous, puke all over your shoes, how can he be real beautiful.

But sometimes I forgot his looks, because his lead-off prowess was substantial. The man got on base. He was never an easy out. And he could play any outfield position. He quickly became a favorite in Chicago, with his energy and quickness. I heard someone behind me in the stands say once, "That's a real ballplayer! That's how they're supposed to do it. He hustles out every ground ball. He runs down every fly in the outfield. I wish we had nine DeJesuses on the field."

David was always good to the fans, especially the kids waiting for his autograph and to get photos. Also to the grown-up women who waited, mostly me. Here are some examples.

Then I met his wife. Like most women, I automatically distrust beautiful women. Kim DeJesus was the perfect target for my disgust. Of course I would hate her! I can't begin to describe her beauty in a way that would do her justice. Just look at her: I think you can probably tell which one she is.

But I couldn't hate her. I do not pretend to know her, but I have talked to her enough times to know that she is just as good as she is beautiful. She and David spent countless hours organizing fundraisers for many different causes. She always had kind things to say to her growing list of (mostly male) fans, and she always had kind things to say to me. I found out she grew up in the Chicago area, and she, too, had gone through some baseball crushes. And now she was married to possibly the most beautiful man to ever wear a Cubs uniform.

Even though she possessed an otherworldly beauty, somehow you could imagine that she was your best friend from grade school. When she talked to me, it was as if we were on the same level, and I was not just an ogre talking to the fairy princess. She was more beautiful than any woman I had ever met, but she was also a mom who loved posting photos of her baby boy, and a wife who was still overwhelmed by how handsome her husband is. She talked about being a klutz, having acne, being self-conscious--as if someone that perfect could ever have anything to be self-conscious about!

They're gone now. I wish they were still here. It's difficult to imagine Wrigley without them. But now David will play for a contender. Kim will fit in just fine with the new baseball wives, because how can you not love her? I'll keep in touch with her instagram photos and his headlining baseball stories. 

I have watched enough of my favorite players leave the Cubs that I know I should be desensitized to the whole deal. Scott Hairston said to me, "I guess it's just business, right? I guess we're supposed to deal with it." But I could tell in his eyes that he didn't really think that.

I don't know what kind of hope we Cubs fans are supposed to have, how far we are supposed to look to the future for "THE SEASON" that will be the one that's supposed to count. David would've helped us for many years to come. Kim would've organized enough fundraisers to keep the Cubs active in the community for a decade. They were new Cubs, but they were older than most of the Cubs, and in many ways it feels like they've been here forever. And now, they're gone.

I will never forget the standing ovation David got when he stepped to the plate to pinch-hit in his first at bat as a National. Why did he get the ovation? He didn't have the highest batting average. He wasn't our best fielder. He wasn't the fastest guy. How did this guy get an ovation from the least forgiving, most critical fans in baseball?

Maybe because he represented what every Cubs player should be. Not just the physical picture of what we want in a player, although he does have those undeniable good looks, but the moral idea of what a player should be. A hard worker who gives everything on the field, no scandals off the field, just an athlete with a family that means everything to him, a Christian guy who doesn't beat the fans over the head with the Bible, but who quietly exhibits its principles in the way he plays. In many ways, David DeJesus was an average player with average statistics except for a ridiculous on-base-percentage, but in many more ways, David DeJesus was someone whose leadership and work ethic will be impossible to replace, and whose loss will be felt keenly on the Cubs and in our city.

With the loss of the DeJesus family, Wrigley is far less beautiful. Games will be less exciting. But I don't know a Cubs fan in the world who won't root for David no matter where he goes--Washington, Tampa Bay--back to Chicago? Wherever.

Good luck, you beautiful, good, dear people. I'm thankful for the time I had to watch you play and to interact with you both. Many, many blessings for you as you embark on this new path. You will be dearly missed. And, Kim, keep the kale recipes coming.

A boy and a girl

This is the story of a boy and a girl. I am the girl. He is the boy. Spoiler alert: This does not have a happy ending, at least not for the girl.

The girl met him one night and was rendered speechless by him. She wasn't one who too put much stock in looks, but it was more than his looks--it was him. She was drawn to him. And the more she saw him, the less difficult it was to talk to him. The more she HAD to talk to him, even if she had nothing to say.

The boy was charming, but he was also beautiful, and she knew they would never be together. Except one day after work, he saw her walking alone, and he asked her to join him for dinner. And she went, and they ate (he ate, she sipped a Sprite) and talked and laughed, and he walked her to her car and hugged her tightly.

The days wore on. When he was talking to her, everyone else became fuzzy background, and he only saw her, and she only saw him. One night she met his parents, and his mother told her that they had heard so much about her, and she told him what the boy had been like when he was young.

And then the boy walked up behind them, and slung his arm around the girl's shoulders, and he whispered in her ear, "Did she tell you my deepest, darkest?" and she shivered. She was beginning to love him.

But the weather grew cold, and his job was over, and he was transferred to another state. The last day she saw him, she became pouty and childish. She hated that he was leaving, but she didn't want to be the first to say it. And the boy finally exploded at her because she was so annoying. and she said, "Sorry, but I hate this. You don't even care, but this is killing me."

He pulled her aside, out of the hearing of everyone, and he looked at her, his green eyes blazing, his hands closing gently around her arms, and he said, sincerely, "Don't you think this is hard for me, too?"

He left town as the sun was setting, a beautiful yellow sky, and she cried. She talked to him from time to time, but she assumed she would never see him again.

But then he was back, and she wasn't expecting it, and neither was he. She yelled out the boy's name, and he stopped, then ran to her and picked her up in the best hug of her life. He was the only place she felt small.

One night after work, he said, "I'm hungry. We're going to eat."

The girl said nothing, just nodded and smiled and felt like her heart was going to burst with happiness.

"A bunch of the guys from work are going out to watch the Blackhawks game. Or we could go somewhere else."

"Somewhere else," she said. And he took her arm and led her to the same diner they had eaten at a year before, and she ordered Sprite as they pretended to care about the outcome of the Blackhawks game. He threw a French fry at her face, then reached across the table with a napkin and swiped at her face. And then they locked eyes, and he said, "Your hair is my favorite," and she blushed, so unused to compliments, especially from beautiful boys with emerald eyes.

The boy called her one night, drunk, after celebrating a pretty great day at work. And he told her what he liked about her. She tried to remind herself that this was preposterous, that gods don't dwell among the peasants, but he said he wanted to see her again that weekend.

He had a change of heart the next day, said he needed to focus on work and not women, but that everything he had said when he was drunk was true. She didn't usually believe people, but she believed him.

She tried to act cool, but one day he didn't show up for work, and she was sure he was fired. He showed up late and she burst into tears.

"What's wrong?" the boy asked.

"I thought you were gone," the girl answered.

He took her face in his hands, wiped his tears with his thumbs, and said, "Stop freaking out."

Things were fine, but they weren't good. They weren't romantic. The girl became clingy and the boy became colder. Until one night, when the girl heard someone say, "I'm with The Boy."

The girl looked at the impostor, who was younger, smaller, more casual than she. She felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. The girl realized it had been over for a long time.

The girl cried in the car all the way home. She felt pretty stupid.

Travis Wood and Parenthood

Yesterday I saw Travis Wood's dad at Wrigley---it was clearly his dad, as it looked exactly like him except for gray hair, very very handsome---and he was wearing a 2013 All-Star hat and All-Star shirt. He must have been so proud of his son, so proud that, weeks later, he wore the All-Star gear as his son pitched at Wrigley, maybe hoping someone would ask him about the game, and he could launch into the story of his son, who was a question mark about even making the Opening Day roster, was chosen to be on the All-Star Team.

For some reason, it choked me up, because I realized that, no matter what level of success a child reaches, his parents are just as proud of him as they were when he took his first step, brought home his first report card, won his first trophy, graduated high school, pitched in the Major League All-Star game. All my students' parents at the State Championship game in their WCS gear--I pictured his dad in the middle of all of that when Travis was in high school, and it just struck me as a universally beautiful thing, the unfailing love of a parent.

And tonight when I talked to Travis, and told him I saw his dad wearing the gear, Travis smiled bigger than I've ever seen him smile, and I saw immediately that the feeling was mutual.

Some girls actually know about baseball

If you live in Chicago and listen to any sports radio or talk to people who fancy themselves to be sports-radio personalities but are really just middle-aged people who complain a lot, you know that everyone is talking about bunting. The Cubs don't bunt enough. The Cubs bunt too much. Junior Lake should never bunt. I want bundt cake (that's just me, but it does sound good right now). Last night at the Cubs game, some Cubs "fan" (he yelled "you suck!" at every player on both teams) said that Junior Lake should never bunt,

"Well," I said, "Lake can't hot off-speed pitches. So the bunt is probably his best chance to advance the runner."

"But just listen," he said, touching my arm briefly, leaning closely into my space with his beer breath,"Junior Lake is a power hitter. You don't ever have your power hitter bunt."

"Well, Lake is only considered our power hitter because when he first came up he was hitting bombs, but since the teams have figured out he can't hit off-speed pitches, his power numbers have fallen. To zero."

"You just like him because he's [good-looking (my paraphrase)]."

"Well, I don't really like him, and he is good-looking. What I was saying is, the bunt was the right choice."

And then his friend got involved. "How do you know so much about baseball? You're a girl."

"I guess I am a girl," I conceded.

"He just means," Beer-Breath jumped in "that you don't seem like you would know anything about baseball."

"Ah. That makes more sense."

My Secret Shame

I have a secret shame, and I'm finally ready to share it with the world:

I collect baseball cards.

Yes, on the outside I am a grown, professional woman with a master's degree and the ability to go to rated-R movies. But on the inside, I am a pimply 11-year-old boy who still thinks kissing is gross. When I'm having a rough day, I go to Target and pick up a pack and rip it open. And I love that smell, the smell of a fresh pack of cards, and, really, the smell of hope. The hope that inside, I'll find a player I really like, and not another Homer Bailey, because he is never nice to me.

This secret shame started the summer of 1992, but I never bought packs. I went down the street to a little Griffith, Indiana, shop named with initials--L&M or something like that. It was a baseball card shop, and inside the owners had beautiful Robin Ventura and Mark Grace and Ryne Sandberg and Jack McDowell cards. I only wanted Cubs and Sox, or former Cubs and Sox, and those four players especially. I was a unique specimen, a girl who collected cards and liked BOTH Chicago teams, so the owner used to set aside cards he knew I'd like and cut me a really good deal. We never had the money to go to the park for baseball games, and we didn't have a TV that got reception, so these cards were my window into the faces of these men that I revered, and those faces were in my mind as I pored over the daily box scores. Because above all, above the collecting and the cards themselves, I loved baseball more than almost anything.

I never really thought about getting the cards signed because it seemed impossible. People with autographed baseball cards were so glamorous. I got one card signed--Robin Ventura's #1 Draft Pick Topps card. I think it was a 1988. I need to check on that. I went to Southlake Mall in Merrillville, Indiana, where he was signing, and when I saw him in person, I started crying, like this was the Beatles or something. He signed the card and smiled and I was happier than I ever thought I'd be again. In fact, maybe that moment was the happiest I ever was--it's impossible to quantify that kind of thing, though.

I thought I had a lot of cards. I had a jumbo binder full, all of Cubs and Sox. And then I went away to college, and I brought it with me, proudly displaying a bumper sticker for The Score's old radio station across its cover. But I wasn't proud of the cards--I hid them. I put the binder in my college storage area until I met Mark Wilkins. Mark and I became instant friends when he found out I loved baseball. We had other things in common, too, such as our intense addiction to our college family. We didn't always like the school, but we loved the friends there, and we both thought of our school as our family. But back to baseball, Mark knew Robin Ventura was my favorite (everyone at college knew he was my favorite), and even though Mark cheered for the Red Sox, we talked about Ventura versus Boggs and would a Chicago or Boston team ever win a World Series again? And then he told me he collected baseball cards, and I breathed a sigh of relief, because I finally had someone I could share my secret shame with. His collection was back in Massachusetts, and it was far more full than mine, but I could tell from his face that he understood how cool baseball cards were. And he understood why, when I was feeling homesick, I would sneak up to the storage area and page through my binder and look at the faces of my hometown teams.

And then Mark's brother died, and Mark had to leave school, and I was so profoundly sad for him, my good, dear friend who was one of the most generous people I'd ever known, that he had to experience this intense pain, and then leave the family he had at school. I was no good with expressing emotion, but I wanted him to know I cared, so I wrote him a letter and tucked inside my Robin Ventura autographed card, because I felt like that was the only way to show him that I wanted him to feel better and that I would miss him, and I knew I was telling him in a language he understood.

Mark gave me back the card and another Ventura card, mounted in a beautiful casing, saying he couldn't possibly accept the card but appreciated the gesture. And he eventually came back to Minnesota and we are still friends to this day, and since then he has given me boxes and boxes of baseball cards, and I have a signed Saltalamacchia card that I keep meaning to send him. We've seen teams from both our cities win World Series titles, but not the team that matters. Not the Cubs. I imagine when that happens, he'll be one of the first people I want to celebrate with, because he understands waiting and disappointment and what it means to have just one dream come true.

I didn't really collect any new cards because I had no time for it, and I lost a little interest. But a couple years ago, I started collecting again, and I started collecting players from all the teams, and now I have begun collecting signatures on baseball cards. That means I hang out with some of the creepiest, weirdest, most unwashed people you will ever see in your life. Now, I will only collect autographs at the park. I will not go to hotels, or chase people down in restaurants and ask for their autographs. That's their private time. Some guys only sign at hotels, so I guess I will never get those guys. It's different asking them at the park, I guess because they're at work and it's their jobs. But some of these guys will chase down players in their cars, and they'll pay kids to ask for autographs, and they will beg you for an autograph you got that they really want.

Sometimes I look at them, and I know this is their whole life, and it makes me sad, because I picture their families at home and I know there is no way they can actually support a family on what they make selling baseball cards. Or I picture the families they will never have because I am the first female they have ever spoken to, and I don't really count. And sometimes I look at them and I want to punch them in the throat because they're obnoxious. So why do I do it? I don't really know. I guess it's the challenge. I love that sometimes I'm the only one that the guys sign for, and I know it's because I'm usually the only girl there and I'm hilarious, and they know I couldn't possibly be a dealer. And it's a means to an end. I get to meet these guys. I have met some of the greatest players to ever play this beautiful game. I know the ones who are always nice (Joe Mauer) and the ones who will never stop, even to spit on your face if your mustache is on fire (Yadier Molina). Really, most of the guys are so nice, and if it weren't for their 300 dollar jeans and 1500 dollar shoes, you'd never know they were fancy or famous.

And the thing is, I have met some of the most wonderful people in the world, and I'm not talking about the baseball players. In the middle of the unwashed masses of collectors, a few people have come forward with being awesome.

One guy is a Chicago police officer. He used to be at every game at Wrigley, but last year a guy robbed me, and he chased after him, and he was attacked by the perp, and now it's a big legal battle. We've hung out a few times outside of baseball, and he has a great heart and I'd trust him with my life, even though I barely know him. He never comes anymore, and that's sad. That thief didn't just take my stuff; he robbed me of my friend, too.

Another guy is a Chicago Public School teacher. He's taught me a lot about collecting, and I can talk to him about baseball and he takes me seriously. He's a Brewers fan, but really he just loves the game. He gets really intense when we're having a good day and he gets really curmudgeony when no one signs. Sometimes he brings his two nephews, and he sits back while they get autographs, and he looks alternately proud of them and irritated with them if they aren't aggressive enough. I love to watch it. He just got married, so I know he won't be around as much, especially once he starts having kids. And I know it will kill him when I post the autographs I got at the park while he stayed home with his family. But the difference between most of the other collectors and him is that he has imagined a life for himself outside of chasing down multimillionaires and asking for the stroke of their pen on a piece of cardboard. He likes that, but he doesn't live for it.

And then there's the dad, the rough, ex-gang member who has stories of bullets whizzing by his ear, a former alcohol-addicted guy who has cleaned up his life, and whose kids, especially his youngest son, worship him. He swears constantly, and those words are probably among the nicest things he says. He jokes around and hurts my feelings and then laughs like a pirate. If we were on a reality-television show, they'd have to bleep at least 70 percent of what he says. "This sucks," he says, at least once a game, especially after getting turned down for an autograph. But he's the only one who could get Russell Martin to stop and sign, so I think he's pretty cool. And he loves his kids. He shows it in a bizarre way, threatening to break their arms or calling them gay, but he doesn't mean any of those things. He loves his family fiercely, and he would take a bullet for any of them. And they would follow him anywhere. It amazes me that he has that kind of influence. It is amazing and humbling to know someone out there hangs on your every word and every action. And he was another guy who chased after the robber, his youngest son tagging behind, too, because he does anything his dad does. He went after a criminal for me, someone he barely knew, someone who just happens to have that same baseball-card sickness.

There are a couple other semi-normal ones of us out there, and we all have our stories and our reasons, but none of us really talk about this part of our lives with our other friends. They wouldn't understand. They would think it's cool that we met Chipper Jones and Bryce Harper, but they wouldn't want to stand outside for 12 hours with us. That's something only we understand, and maybe that's why we're friends with each other. We're in a hospital ward suffering from the same disease, or we're at a 12-step meeting admitting we have a problem but that we're not quite ready to get that monkey off our backs.

And I know the baseball players think we're losers, and I can live with that. I won't even think of that after the game when I'm counting my cards and looking at my autographs again and again and texting my friends about our loot, where my one binder has evolved into two bookshelves worth of binders filled with cards. It's my secret shame, but it's public now, and I feel like there are more people like me out there somewhere who are ashamed, too.

Find me. Let's do this together.