They say there is no crying in baseball.
Surely whoever made up that inanity never spent a day in baseball. In the 30-plus years in which baseball has been a part of my consciousness and, truth be told, one of the major focuses of my life, the game has been nothing but crying.
There have been tears of joy, like the time when the Phillies won the World Series, or the celebration of the rare chance that someone will get the game-winning hit.
Then there are tears of defeat, like the 122 other seasons when the Phillies did not win the World Series or the hard-luck losses on center stage for the entire world to see. Mitch Williams, for example, and poor Bill Buckner. Donnie Moore.
Tears of pain, of course. Like the time I bravely stood too close when the big kids were hitting and took a line drive off my shin. Too this day I’ve never felt anything that hurt so bad or saw a bruise turn as purple as Welch’s jelly.
Yes, tears of sadness. Sadness for Donnie Moore. Thurman Munson, of course. Roberto Clemente. Lyman Bostock Tim Crews.
And now this.
There’s no crying in baseball?
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
Cory Lidle was killed on Wednesday afternoon when the plane he was flying crashed into a 50-story high rise on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Cory was a budding pilot, stellar golfer, smart poker player and a hard-working Major League pitcher. All of those pursuits, which Cory excelled at beyond the simple dabbling of a regular old hobbyist, took guile, wit and grit.
Certainly those traits were on display to Phillies fans who watched Cory pitch for parts of the past three seasons. They saw it on the mound, where the average-looking right-hander with an unexceptional repertoire of pitches somehow figured out a way to win 26 games for the Phillies.
Or they saw it in the papers where Cory’s penchant for expressing himself sometimes set off controversy or criticism, but were never ever boring. In an age of heightened PR sense and political correctness, Cory was nothing as simple as outspoken, but instead was bold. Unpopular decisions or controversial talk were always met with a shrug and a mischievous grin as if to indicate that he planned on getting everyone so riled up all along.
Sure, some teammates didn’t like it – such as Arthur Rhodes or Billy Wagner – but it’s hard to deny how lively Cory was.
That’s what I’ll remember the most about Cory. He was alive. He was engaging. He was aware. He knew what other people did, what they thought, what they wrote and what they were interested in. That’s not just rare behavior for a Major League Baseball player, but also for most people you come across on a daily basis. How many people do you come across who not only show an interest in you, but also give their time?
Isn’t time the most valuable thing we own?
But there Cory was after every game – wearing that ball cap pulled down over his eyes with a t-shirt tucked into jeans and clutching a plastic bag – waiting for the press. He answered every question, asked a few of his own before carrying on a few private, revealing conversations.
Last April he told me he thought he would be traded around the deadline if the Phillies weren’t in the playoff hunt. He didn’t have any insider information; it was just a hunch that proved to be correct. He also appreciated people who liked to tell jokes or stories, which made him a favorite sounding board for the writing corps.
More important than all of that, Cory was a father to a six-year-old boy named Christopher, who liked to run around the clubhouse. In just a short time it was easy to see where little Christopher got that mischievous grin and nature that often caused his dad to tell him to go sit in front of the locker and wait patiently. It was clear as the face on a clock.
He was also a husband to Melanie and a provider and friend for his family. Sometimes Cory’s twin brother Kevin came around when his Independent League team was playing in Camden. He was also especially close with his sister and parents.
So when I hear that saying where there is no crying in baseball, all I can do is shake my head in disbelief. There is crying in baseball.
There is crying in baseball when you think of that six-year-old boy who is never going to be able to play catch with his dad again.
It was hard not to think about Cory Lidle yesterday after watching his son and wife throw out the first pitch in front of the sold out crowd at Yankee Stadium. According to The New York Times Lidle’s locker in the Stadium was directly across from Thurman Munson’s, the other Yankee who also died in a plane crash. And like Munson’s locker since August 1979, Lidle’s will remain unused for the rest of the year.
