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| The Sunshine Boys, Spring Training 1989 - Robert Brustad (right) along with this author and the late Commissioner of Major League Baseball, A. Bartlett Giamatti |
A few years ago I lost a close friend to metastatic cancer.
Dr. Robert Brustad, age 69, left behind a wife,Vone, and a teenage son "JJ". Not incidentally, Bob also left behind the game of baseball.
Baseball ultimately couldn't save my friend from an end that awaits us all, but it became a comforting companion to his well-spent life and especially to his final agonizing year of chemotherapy. Our final conversations would always leave space at the end for the saving grace and hopeful expectancy of another baseball season, another season in the sun to share. We both knew we were talking about far more than a game.
Baseball may not be a road to God, but it can become a clear pathway to a deeply shared, collective love between persons. One of the things that lets us know we are never traveling alone.
This, then, is the supreme message my friend's life left behind. The sacrificial hit that transcends seasons and sends us all "home."
Love one another!
hcummins@aol.com
