At Least They're Committed

It’s the Colorado Rockies’ Opening Day in the team’s 20th year, and so naturally I’m thinking about my friend Terry. I miss Terry. If he were still here I have no doubt we’d be sharing season tickets, betting on games and whether the Rockies would or wouldn’t finish over .500.

It wasn’t Opening Day when any of this happened, but it was a bright, sunny, Colorado afternoon and I got just the right amount of sun and something so much more important.

It’s funny how good things come from bullshit. Days before, I was standing by the sports desk at the Rocky, crying on my friend Darrell’s shoulder, literally, because I’d not been taken seriously for a position I’d tried for, when the managing editor came up and gave me two tickets to the Rockies game, stellar seats, for some excellent content errors and embarrassments I’d caught before we’d gone to press. Consolation prize.

Soon after we arrived at the game, D was keen enough to notice Rockies owner Jerry McMorris seated two rows down in the section next to ours. He had quite the entourage, including a security guard that stood at the end of the row. (I had always liked McMorris and the Rockies because their “cause” was curing cystic fibrosis, a cause near and dear to my heart having recently lost my cousin to this horrible condition. McMorris died of pancreatic cancer last year, and part of me is happy for him because he’s back together with his son, who had died of CF.)

It was D’s idea, so I can’t take credit for it. Terry was living in Texas at this point, but there was no truer or more dedicated Rockies fan at that time. He was also dying of lung cancer at age 32. I steeled away and bought a large Rockies T-shirt and scrounged up a piece of paper and pen. I wrote a note to McMorris thanking him for his work toward finding a cure for CF, telling him how it had affected my family, and letting him know about the Rockies’ greatest fan ever who was going to die. I wondered if he could ask the players to sign the T-shirt and then give it back to “Elvis” (Jim Benton) our Rockies writer at the Rocky. I shyly approached the security guard and asked if he could give the package to McMorris. He did, I returned to my seat, McMorris took it, turned and nodded at me.

If I’ve ever been more excited, I’m not sure of how or when. It had been a couple weeks when Elvis called and told me he had a T-shirt signed by the players for me. It couldn’t have been more valuable to me if it had been pure gold. I squealed when he dropped it off and D and I later that night literally jumped in excitement every time we deciphered a signature. Terry Shumpert wrote a scripture verse for Terry; Dante Bichette autographed the shirt dead center; Jim Leyland had signed with one arm in a cast; the last one, on the left shoulder, we finally recognized — after me running my finger over and over the swirls of the line — made us clap with joy. Funny, it was so obvious once you saw it! It was seven-time National League Golden Glove winner Larry Walker.

I no longer have the email I received from Terry when he got the shirt. I wish I did; there are a lot of things I wish. But I remember the gist of it, short and sweet: “I love you; you have no idea how much I love you!” Soon in the mail came a photo of his sons and their new basset puppy Clarence flanking the T-shirt, framed and preserved under glass. The note said, “We love you.”

I look for you at the games, Terry, because we never went to a game together (that’s the problem with sharing season tickets), but now we can and I know you’re there somewhere, maybe even hanging with Jerry McMorris right behind home plate.

Happy Opening Day, my friend. I think I’ll go out on a limb for once and say the Rockies will finish over .500 this season. I miss you.