One is the Loneliest Number

It is a truth that we probably didn’t need a song or a Tom Clancy novel (?!-thank you Wikipedia) to tell us.

I spent Memorial Day weekend visiting Nik in Savannah, Georgia. We were together for almost two and a half whole days! (which, if you’re keeping track at home, is the longest we’ve been together in two months). Oh, the life of a baseball WAG. But this post isn’t to whine because isn’t that just such an unbecoming activity? It is to enlighten your mind about the scheduling conflicts every ball player and his lady must endure.

There are pretty much three options a WAG can choose at the beginning of every season. One, she can stay wherever she is, working or going to school or doing just whatever she wants to do. That is the option I chose this season. By that I mean that is the option the cruel, hard world forced me to accept because we no longer barter. It was a sad day when that system ended friends. So I have basically become an indentured servant of the man. Only time will tell how long my period of service will last.

I digress. Another alternative is adopting the home team and city as your own. You try to find a part-time job if that’s the kind of thing that tickles your fancy. Or you can do nothing, but on a minor leaguer’s (is that a word? It looks awfully strange) salary, you will most likely also be forced to –gasp!-work. So you hang out by yourself during the (sometimes nine day!) road trips and get your honey during home stands. The last and most glorious option is to make like your SO (read: significant other) and adopt the life of a traveler. He goes on the road, you go on the road. He’s playing at home, you’re staying at home. Oh that the day might come when that dream becomes a reality.

But here’s the rub to those of you who aren’t initiated in the ways of baseball waggery. During the season, no matter what you choose, your player is not your own. For all intents and purposes, (until three years ago I thought that phrase was “for all intensive purposes”—what does that even mean?) he is owned by his team. You have but little claim on his time and so you take what you can get and are satisfied or annoyed with the result depending on your general disposition and hormones and things of that nature.

For the life of a baseball player is just so much more involved than one would think. This is like a spoiler alert if you’re waiting with breathless anticipation for Nik’s day in the life of post (but, let’s be honest, by the time he writes that you will not remember this so it’s all good). Most days, Nik sleeps in until 10 or 11, wakes up and then goes to lift. He eats lunch and then has to be at the field for practice around 1. The game starts at seven. You see where I’m going with this? The game finishes at 9:30 or ten then it’s off to eat again and back to his apartment. And it starts all over again the next day. There are reprieves aka no lift days when he doesn’t have to be anywhere until just five hours before the game or, my favorite!, days when he pitches. On pitch days, he doesn’t have to be there until 2 ½ hours before the game if he’s at home and four hours if he’s away. Brilliant. So even when you’re together as much as possible, you’re still alone an awful lot. And isn’t one just the loneliest number?

Hahaha.