What I remember from my daughter Melanie's birth: I only missed an inning and a half of a baseball game on TV

I'm kidding, of course. I mean, we really did have the Cleveland Indians-Boston Red Sox doubleheader on the TV in the labor and delivery room. And Terry was so good at birthing babies by that point (Melanie is/was our fourth) she made the whole thing happen really, really fast.

But it's not like the baseball games are my #1 memory from the day's proceedings.

Melanie's full head of hair and beautiful face when she came out. And the amazing strength Terry showed in bringing this beautiful little girl into the world. Those things are what I remember most.

The Indians were a close second.

Maybe third.

Anyway, Mel turns 24 years old tomorrow, which seems impossible, but the calendar does not lie. I was not, of course, the one who birthed her on September 21, 2000, but I seem to remember Terry's labor that day being just about the easiest among all of our kids.

As was the case with four of our five children, they hooked Terry up to a Pitocin pump to induce contractions, since all of our kids except Chloe had to be coaxed out of the womb (it must have been really comfortable in there). And I know that at some point Terry was experiencing enough pain to make the whole thing less than enjoyable.

But really, relative to the other times I watched her do this, Melanie's birth seemed like such a breeze.

I remember Terry calmly informing the L&D nurses and her doctor (the great Dinkar Rao) that it was time for Mel to make her appearance. And they took Terry seriously and made the necessary preparations because, when it comes to matters like this, veteran moms like my wife know what they're talking about.

I took a lot of pictures of Melanie in the moments after she was born. Like, before they even had a chance to wipe the goo off her and she was still connected to her mother via the umbliical cord.

The child was literally seconds old and all I could think to do was play photographer.

The other thing I remember about Mel's birth was bringing her home and all of us – all six of us – getting sick at the same time. It was a stomach thing, I believe, because our living room was lined with old blankets to catch any misdirected puke.

In time we all recovered, of course, and Melanie turned out to be such a wonderful addition to our family. She's a smart, successful, beautiful young woman, and I'm so proud of her.

For the record, the Indians and Red Sox split that doubleheader. I only wish the Tribe could have won both games in Mel's honor.

BLOG RERUN: For it's money they have and peace they lack

NOTE: This post originally ran on the blog on September 7, 2017. I bring it back today for three reasons: (1) It is baseball season; (2) It feels even more relevant today than it did nearly seven years ago; (3) While I mostly don't love my own writing, I've always thought I did an OK job with this one. I hope you do, too.

There is a cult within America – populated largely by white, middle-aged males, but certainly not limited to them – that has romanticized the game of baseball beyond what it probably deserves.

I am perhaps one of them, but at least I know I am one of them.

The reasons for this idolization of the sport are varied. For many, baseball was their best (and perhaps only) connection with their fathers. Many of us root for the teams our dads rooted for because there is an indelible bond, strengthened ever further by blood, among those who live and die with the fortunes of a common athletic team.

For others, baseball represents a simpler time. In most cases, I think that simpler time for which they yearn was really no simpler than today, but it certainly seemed simpler in a pre-Internet age...and with the passing of time, of course, which tends to whitewash every flaw.

In the days before massive youth soccer leagues, baseball was the one sport in which most young men – it was softball for the girls – participated at one level or another. I played through the age of 13 until I could no longer keep up with the fastballs and had no hope of hitting a curveball. More importantly, I became a fan of the game at the age of 9 and remain one to this day.

It is a slow game, some will say, and I don't disagree with them. But "slow" does not equate with "boring." Watching a well-played baseball game is just about the best way I can think of to spend a summer afternoon, even if it takes 3+ hours to play and ends with a 2-1 score.

I bring this up because, as I type, my beloved Cleveland Indians have won an astounding 14 games in a row (the second consecutive season in which they've accomplished this feat). And tonight they go for No. 15 with ace pitcher and Cy Young Award candidate Corey Kluber on the mound.

So many people I come across these days (including my doctor as she poked and prodded me this morning as part of my annual physical) want to talk about the Tribe. Could this be their year? Will they stay healthy? What's up with Jose Ramirez's incredible bat? And his hair, for that matter?

They ask these questions with that note of restrained, even fatalistic, optimism that Cleveland sports fans have perfected. We have been burned in a variety of creatively cruel ways over the years, and there is a part of us that always assumes the worst will happen.

But the important thing is, talking about the Tribe is fun, and it makes us happy. It gives us a few minutes to stop thinking about hurricanes and politics and flag protests and everything else that makes us cry and worry and act viciously toward one another.

There are poor people in this country, no doubt, but as comedienne Marsha Warfield said about hunger in the U.S., "It ain't but so bad." The vast majority of us have the essentials we need to live. Most have roofs over their heads and some sort of food on the table. We have the things our wages can buy.

What we don't have, what perhaps we've never had, is peace. A sense that everything is going to be OK. Maybe that's impossible to have in this (or any) age, so we settle for small glimpses of it. We talk about the things that make us feel good and remind us that humans have the capacity to do meaningful, inspirational things.

And I include baseball in that. It's just a game, you might say, and you're right. But it's also an escape, albeit temporary, from everything else that weighs on us. It is a way to connect to the part of our collective consciousness that shuts down in the face of worrisome news and constant conflict and our own mortality.

There are bad characters in baseball as in anything. There is greed, there is selfishness and there is cheating.

But there is also purity and honesty and beauty that mostly eludes us as we slog our way through everyday life.

It's purity, honesty and beauty that can be had for the price of a ticket, or even the click of a TV remote.

If acknowledging that simple fact constitutes over-romanticizing baseball, then I can only plead guilty.

In the end, I'll be back season after season to watch and cheer and fret and fume. I follow other sports, but in the end, it was baseball that was my first love. And she never fails to deliver.

There will always be someone better than you at any given activity, which is really OK (I guess)

The AI Blog Post Image Generator returned this semi-abomination when prompted with the phrase "competitive streak." It was apparently taken from the finals of the Deformed Facial Features Track & Field Championships.

When I was (I think) 10 years old, I won our city's Pitch, Hit and Run competition for my age group.

Pitch, Hit and Run is/was, as the name implies, a baseball-oriented event in which kids would be measured on how accurately they could pitch a ball, how far they could hit it, and how quickly they could run the bases.

It was around the age of 10 when I started getting bigger, stronger and faster than most of the kids in my class at school. I was an early bloomer, so I had an undeniable physiological advantage in all three phases of the game.

Winning at the city level meant I advanced to the Cleveland-area Pitch, Hit and Run held at Edgewater Park, maybe a half hour from our house. I only remember three things about that event:

(1) I didn't perform nearly as well there as I had in my local competition.

(2) All of the boys in my age group appeared to be as physically mature as me.

(3) My brother Mark took me to Cleveland Municipal Stadium after the event and we watched the Cleveland Indians take on the then-California Angels.

I didn't come close to advancing to whatever the next level of Pitch, Hit and Run was, and I do recall being somewhat disappointed by that,

It was my first taste of "big fish, little pond" syndrome, but certainly not my last.

A few years later, while I was a pretty fast runner in middle school track, more than once I ran into kids from other cities who were faster than me.

In high school track, I sometimes made it to the finals of 100 and 200-meter dashes in big meets, but rarely could I win it all because other kids were, again, simply faster.

The same held true for spelling bees, writing competitions and other events throughout high school and college where there were defined winners and losers.

At some point, I inevitably came across someone who was better than me.

Which is both a good lesson to learn and the simple reality for 99% of us. No matter what you do or how well you do it, there is only a very, very small handful of people anywhere who can say they're the undeniable, absolute best at something.

This used to bother me to no end, given my wide competitive streak. I grudgingly accepted that certain people were inherently better and/or worked harder than me to succeed, but it took me years to come to terms with the idea of actually losing to them.

I'm not a big fan of losing even now, but I hated it way more when I was in my teens and 20s, let me tell you.

All of which is to say people like me need to learn to adjust to the reality of the world or else live our lives in seething resentment of the highest achievers.

When you run up against someone with more skill than you, the best approach, of course, is to learn from them. See how they practice and prepare. Understand how they got to where they are. Identify the little things they do that set them apart.

But even then, you also have to concede that they may just be more naturally gifted than you, and there isn't much you can do about that.

As much as I hate to admit it, sometimes getting to the top of the heap simply isn't in the cards.

Sports remain a big part of my life but don't mean as much to me as they used to...which is just fine

One way or another, I find myself watching or attending sporting events all the time.

Some are cross country meets, where I get to see my son Jack compete. Others are soccer and volleyball matches I'm announcing, or football games where the Wickliffe Swing Band performs at halftime.

And of course there are the professional sports teams here in Cleveland whose games I will occasionally listen to on the radio or watch on TV.

The key word here is "occasionally."

For various reasons, as I approach 52 years of age, sports have changed for me in two important ways.

One is that I don't "do" pro sports to the level I once did. This is not so much an intentional decision as it is a function of a busy schedule and the fact that weekends are often devoted to catching up on the stuff I missed during the work week.

I know many people who have walked away from pro sports for political reasons. I absolutely respect their decision, but I am not one of them. My lack of engagement is just a lack of time.

Case in point: I'm typing this post early on Sunday morning, September 26th. My Cleveland Browns will take on the Chicago Bears this afternoon. I am almost certain I will watch zero minutes of the game.

In fact, do you know how many quarters of Browns football I have watched through the first two weeks of the NFL season? The answer is a fraction of one quarter. It's more accurately measured by the number of individual plays I've seen.

Again, this is nothing against the Browns, the NFL, or sports in general. I just have other things that are more important right now. (Trust me, I've been rooting for the Browns for decades and continue to be an ardent fan, as I am of the Indians/Guardians, Cavs, and my beloved Cleveland Monsters.)

Which leads to the other thing that has happened to me in recent years when it comes to sports: When I do manage to watch, I don't get as emotionally invested as I once did.

As Terry will tell you, I have been known to scream at the TV and at the world in general while watching a Browns game. Not so much anymore.

For one thing, it's silly to get worked up over a sporting event, particularly if it doesn't involve your child or a close friend. I am a big believer in the power of sports fandom to be a social connector and a fun hobby, but that should be the extent of it.

Writer Terry Pluto often tells fans never to let the millionaires ruin their day, and he's absolutely right.

Again, none of this means I'm no longer interested in sports. The sports section of the two newspapers to which I subscribe is the first thing I read every morning. And heck, I announce several dozen high school and college events every year. It's not like I can get away from them.

But I think about sports differently now. I have gone from the being the guy who could earnestly write about the nobility of sports fandom (you can read that blog post from December 2011 here) to someone who is maybe a bit better equipped to put athletics – professional or otherwise – into their proper perspective.

I'm not sure whether that means I've matured or am just a boring old person. Either way, I've got a family to spend time with and chores to do, man. Ain't nobody got time for the rest.

There are now more adults in my house than children

There comes a point, when you have kids, when they are no longer kids.

Actually it's not so much a "point," since that suggests a precise time at which they move from kid-hood into adulthood. And of course it doesn't work that way.

What does come about all of a sudden, though, is your realization that the transition has happened.

I came home from work one day recently to a completely empty house. Understand, this rarely happens when you live with six other people, two of whom are legally considered minors, especially in the summer time. If it's not a school day, someone always, always, always seems to be home.

But not this time. I walked in and...bam, no one. So I ran down the mental checklist of everyone's whereabouts:

• Terry was working at the library. It's only 22 hours a week, but it feels to me like Terry is always working at the library. Anyway, she was gone.
• Elissa was somewhere between her job and, I supposed, her boyfriend Mark's house.
• Chloe was working one of her two jobs, I think the library one with Terry. Or maybe she was attending one of her summer college classes. Or maybe she was with her boyfriend Michael. I don't know. The point is, she was nowhere to be found.
• Jared was at his job at the Cleveland Indians Team Shop at Progressive Field, hawking overpriced caps and way overpriced jerseys to suburbanites who had already dropped an awfully pretty penny on tickets, parking and concessions.
• I didn't know where Melanie was. If I remember correctly, I found out later she was out with her boyfriend Dylan.
• And what about little Jack? Little 11-year-old Jack who is usually at home? Off camping with the family of a friend of his. He's at the age where he's developing an entire existence that has nothing to do with us. We've been through this before as the other kids have grown up, of course, but it's still always shocking when they become, you know, actual people with social calendars and everything.

And so there I was, absolutely alone at home for one of the very few times in the past 20 years. Jobs, boyfriends, college classes. It was all a far cry from the toy-strewn floors, the Winnie the Pooh videos, and the randomly dropped sippy cups of not too long ago.

And if I'm being honest with you, I'll admit I kind of liked it.

Or at least I liked it for about 15 minutes. And then I got lonely. It turns out I like having people around the house, even if I'm not interacting with them directly. I realize that one day the constant hum of conversation and activity will become the exception rather than the rule, but borderline chaos is all I've known for many years now.

I grumble about it when it's happening, and then I get sad when it's gone. I'm apparently one of those people you just can't please.

Anyway, the point I guess is that I'm suddenly the father of at least one actual working adult, a couple of on-the-brink adults, and two more who, while technically kids, are growing up at an alarming rate.

It's kind of cool. And kind of sad.

So it goes.

An October roller coaster of emotions

This is a long post. Absurdly long. You don't have to read it. Really, you don't. I just had a lot to say, is all. If you want to read it, go ahead. I just felt I should warn you...


Bill Cosby began what is, for my money, one of his funniest stand-up comedy routines many years ago by saying, "I must tell you about my problems driving around San Francisco..."

Of course, there was nothing "must" about it. He wanted to tell you about those problems, and you wanted to listen because you knew it was going to be funny. Or at least you wanted to be nice to Bill, back when he seemed like a person to whom you should be nice.

In the same way, I must tell you about the emotionally exhausting ordeal that has been my October 2016 to this point. I don't "have" to tell you about it, but I want to tell you about it, and I thank you so much for listening. Or reading, I guess.

Sports, kids, and painful nutshots

If you're someone who indulges me on Facebook, you know that most of my posts these days have something to do with my kids' sports activities. The youngest three are all in the latter stages of their soccer seasons, and of course Jared, my 18-year-old, is also serving as the kicker for my beloved Wickliffe Blue Devils football team.

There are highs and lows when you're the parent of an athlete. You rejoice when they succeed, you agonize when they fall a little short, and you cry inside when they have a difficult time or seem to be losing their enjoyment of the sport, for whatever reason.

Jack, who is 10, is playing his first season of travel soccer. He's a defender, and his team is very good. Very, very good, actually. Jack has had periods when he plays every minute of every game, and other times when he sits the bench. This level of soccer is new to him, and while he has mostly adapted well, there are still things for him to learn. His coach, Arturo, is tough but fair. You earn your spot and you work to keep it. That's the way life goes, and I don't think 10 years old is too early to learn the lesson.

Melanie is a sophomore in high school, and statistically she has had a tougher time this year than she did as a freshman. She's a forward, so Mel measures herself by statistical output: Goals and assists. As of this writing she has one of each. Last season she had something like seven goals and two assists. The fact is, the talent level on her team has risen noticeably this year, and playing time is harder to come by. Again, you get it by earning it.

Virtually no soccer player I've coached or watched over the past 15 years works harder than Melanie. She's the soccer equivalent of a hockey grinder: Someone who goes out there and fights for loose balls, bangs bodies and plays physically when needed, and consistently puts her head down and does the dirty work in front of the goal. Those are the types of things that help teams win, even if they don't always show up on the stat sheet.

Mel is going through a crisis of faith these days. She's a bit disillusioned by her position in the team hierarchy, and she doesn't see much room for upward movement in the next two seasons. My advice to her is simple: Keep doing what you're doing. Work on every facet of your game: Ball control, first touches, decision making, speed, conditioning, etc. Be the hardest working player on the field. The rest will take care of itself.

Not a bad lesson there, eh?

And then there's my boy, Jared. He's one of two boys I have, of course, but for a long time before Jack came along, I simply referred to him as The Boy. And let me tell you, that boy is one busy dude these days.

He's a starting forward on the boys high school soccer team, and the team's second-leading scorer. He does the kicking thing in football, of course, and he also puts on his saxophone and plays (while still in his football uniform) at halftime on Friday nights. Every day is another practice or game, or a combination of all of the above.

He is nearing the end of a football career that began three years ago, but more importantly, of a soccer career that began when he was a fuzzy-headed, six-year-old kindergartner. That's how it is when you're a senior in high school: You do something for years and years and work so hard to get better at it, and then suddenly it's over. Unless you're one of the handful of people who go on to play at the collegiate level, you're done. Just like that. Done.

This realization is coming quickly for Jared. It will all hit him in 3-4 weeks when his fall activities end without the promise of a next year. Part of him will be relieved, I'm sure, as the grind of fall sports and band starts to wear on him noticeably after a while. But part of him will grieve, no doubt in that silent, I've-got-this, keep-it-to-yourself manner of Jared.

And if I'm being honest, I will grieve right along with him. I love watching him play. Just love it. I love watching all of my kids play, but you only get the Senior Experience once, and it has been wonderful. He plays some sort of key role in everything he does, and I couldn't be more proud of him.

But the rest of Jared's life is calling to him, urging him to move on from where he is now and to experience new adventures. I'm excited for him, but I'm going to be so sad when this all comes to a screeching halt in November.

Oh, but you know what I won't miss? Jared taking hard-hit soccer balls to his testicles. Seriously, this happens to him at least once a season. He'll be going about his business playing the game, and someone on the other team will inadvertently launch a rocket shot that will absolutely destroy his Man Region. Jared goes down, he gets tended to by a snickering coach or trainer, both teams on the field laugh while trying to seem like they're not, Jared gets up and hobbles off, and he comes back later in more or less decent shape.

This has happened so many times that I can't imagine watching him go through it again. Maybe it's just as well this soccer thing is about to end.

As for football? Well, Jared has settled into a nice routine every game of executing a series of pooch kickoffs and converting extra points. He had some trouble on the extra points earlier this season, but now he has rounded into form, and the team itself is 6-2 and on its way to its best record in 15+ years. And there may be playoff football in our future, which is stunning.

So I start thinking about whether Jared will be called on to decide one of those playoff games. He hasn't kicked a single field goal in three years of varsity football. Not one. Twice he has lined up to attempt field goal kicks, and both times they were blocked.

What if they send him out there to decide a game with a 35-yard field goal in the final seconds of the fourth quarter? Physically I know he can do it (easily, actually), but mentally, how will he handle it? How will I handle it, for crying out loud?

I'll tell you how I'll handle it: by fainting. Seriously, I'll just pass out on the spot. I'll never see whether the kick is successful or not, because I'll be laid out flat on the bleachers while everyone else is watching nervously.

I'm tough that way.

Saint Terry: The Savior of Our Lives

I am married, as it turns out, to one of the most amazing people on the planet. I've said this before, and if you know her then you know the truth of my words. She is a whirlwind of ability, empathy, laughter and grit. She keeps six of us going every day while maintaining a house that has somehow not fallen down around us in the 13 years we've lived there.

She is, in short, the most remarkable person I've ever met. By a longshot. No disrespect to you or me or anything, but we simply don't come close to her on the Awesomeness Scale.

Which is why her recent emotional struggles have come as a bit of a shock.

When I say "emotional struggles," I don't mean she's going nuts or anything. I just mean that even the mighty Terry has reached the limits of her endurance at a time of year when she is constantly being called on to drive a kid to practice, mend a band uniform, clean up a mess someone else has made, or tend to a very sick cat (more on that in a bit).

Some people can handle more than others. Terry's threshold for work and responsibility is high, but it is not infinite. And over the past several weeks, we've finally reached it.

Which is why I've been on the kids and on myself to step up our games. It never should have gotten to this point in the first place. The family, as a whole, allowed itself to grow entirely too dependent on Mom. That's not good for her, and it's certainly not good for them. You raise independent, resourceful adults by forcing them to be independent and resourceful kids.

We're working on it. Some are better than others, but I'm confident we'll all get there.

In the meantime, Mom has applied for a job for the first time in nearly 20 years. I won't get into the details here, but suffice it to say that she has an interview in a few days, and I know she'll do great. Because that's who she is. If and when she gets the position, even though it's only part time, we're all going to have to adjust and fend for ourselves a little bit more.

This is, by all accounts, a good thing.

Yeah, he was just a cat, but...

A few hours ago, before I had the chance sit down and eat my lunch as I type out this post, I took our cat Bert to the vet and had him euthanized.

That's the medical term they use for it, of course: "euthanized."

What it means, in reality, is that I allowed the doctor to inject a lethal substance into his veins that almost instantly ended the life of the beautiful mess that was Bert.

That phrase "beautiful mess" came from our friend Kelly Gabriel, and I love it. They are the two words that best encapsulate the Bert ethos.

My oldest daughter, Elissa, found Bert sick, cold and alone on Eddy Road one winter evening a few years ago. She called Terry, and they took this smelly, bedraggled creature home. A long bath, a warm bed and several bowls of cat food later, he joined our household as Cat #4 (there would later be five).

We don't know where Bert came from, but it was always clear that his ordeal had left him permanently shy of 100% health. He was fat, he walked with a limping waddle, and one eye appeared to be semi-functional, at best. But he was so, so lovable. He enjoyed being petted. He enjoyed being fed. He enjoyed sleeping in sunbeams.

And best of all, he seemed to enjoy being part of our family.

Not long ago, it became clear that something was wrong. First it was an infection in his mouth. Then it was clear he wasn't eating or drinking much. We quickly discovered that he couldn't eat or drink much, because something was wrong with his tongue. It stuck out sideways, and he couldn't coordinate it with his mouth and jaw to draw in needed food and water.

There was something neurological going on with Bert, though we honestly never paid the vast sums it would have taken to determine exactly what. A brain tumor? A stroke? Something else? Who knows? What was obvious was that Saint Terry, who made it her personal mission to care for Bert every day despite the fact that he couldn't clean himself and quickly became repulsive and smelly, couldn't hand feed this increasingly emaciated feline every day for the rest of his life.

And so the decision was made to put him down. I took him in because there was no way Terry should have had to do that herself. She had already done more than her fair share. The vet, Dr. Richman, was so incredibly kind and empathetic. It was almost as if it pained him more to put Bert to sleep than it did for us to agree to let it happen.

The process itself, if you haven't been through it, is quick and almost painless for the animal. Bert was gone before they even finished fully injecting him with whatever it is they use for this sort of thing. His eyes didn't close. They were just kind of half open. But the life that had been in them moments earlier was obviously gone. It was his body, but it wasn't Bert.

I teared up a little, and not just for Bert. My heart hurts for him, but it hurts even more for the people in my house who loved him. They're dealing with this in different ways, so if you're a praying person, I would appreciate it if you said a few words for them this week.

Which I know sounds silly to those who don't own pets. I realize he was just a cat, but to say that is to deny the reality that Bert was also a presence in our house. He was a personality with whom all of us dealt, just as surely as we deal with each other every day.

And now he's gone. And he's never coming back. The dynamic in our home changes just a little. Among the remaining four cats, it changes a lot.

Ginny, our little semi-kitten, loved Bert. She slept virtually on top of him, helped him clean himself, tagged along sometimes when he walked around the house, and clearly preferred spending time with him more than any of us. It was cute.

Then Bert got sick. And Ginny's tune changed quickly. She avoided Bert. Even hissed at him. A few times in the last week or two, I would see her sneak up on Bert to sniff him. She would get close and take in a good whiff, and quickly recoil.

But you can't blame her. This was nature at work. Pure instinct. Bert had the smell of death about him, and animals avoid death. It's how they're programmed. What had been a loving relationship, at least the way we saw it, quickly became avoidance. Fickle little Ginny moved on to Charlie as her cat buddy. Together I'm sure they'll continue terrorizing the white cats, brothers Fred and George.

And they'll do it without the help of Bert. I don't know how cats' memories work, but I wonder if there will always be a little bit of him in Ginny's mind. I wonder if she'll miss him. Maybe not.

We sure will.

In the end, an October to remember

I have a meeting to get to, so I need to finish lunch and stop typing. But I can't leave without mentioning my Cleveland Indians, who in a few hours will play for the right to advance to the World Series for the first time since 1997.

The year 2016 has been a magical ride for those of us who call ourselves Cleveland sports fans. We endured a comically long period of athletic ineptitude in this town that ended abruptly in one 10-day stretch this past June when the Lake Erie Monsters won the American Hockey League's Calder Cup, and their Quicken Loans Arena roommates the Cleveland Cavaliers captured their first NBA title shortly thereafter.

I had seen so much losing in my lifetime that you would think I would still be on Cloud Nine over these championships.

But in a very real way, I'm not.

And I'll be the first to admit the reason is silly and childish. I never fully embraced or celebrated either title because I wasn't here to see them. I was in Europe for both. When the Monsters won the Cup with a dramatic 1-0 Game 4 victory over Hershey, it was Terry and Jared who sat in our season ticket seats and rejoiced. I was in a hotel room in London on a business trip.

And when the Cavs completed their incredible comeback series win over the Golden State Warriors, I woke up to the news in Barcelona.

That wasn't how it was supposed to happen. It just wasn't. I was supposed to be there with Jared when the Monsters won, and I was supposed to be watching with Jared in our living room when the Cavs finished off the Warriors.

But I wasn't. Best laid plans and all that sort of thing, I suppose.

Again, I know this is stupid, and that I really should be happy for Terry and Jared that they got to witness what they did. I just struggle with it. My dumb little cross to bear.

Enter the 2016 Cleveland Indians.

The Indians were the first sports team with which I fell in love (a statement I realize makes almost no sense to someone who isn't a sports fan). Specifically, it was the 1979 Cleveland Indians. They were a mediocre team that won as much as they lost, finishing in their customary sixth place in the American League's East Division.

But they were my team. The first time I had ever had a "my team." I followed those guys every day in in the paper and on TV. Toby Harrah, Duane Kuiper, Andre Thornton, Bobby Bonds, Mike Hargrove, Wayne Garland. Names that mean almost nothing to most people now, but that meant a lot to me as a 10-year-old fan.

The Tribe has been to the World Series twice in my lifetime, losing in 1995 to the Atlanta Braves and (painfully, unbelievably) in 1997 to the Florida Marlins.

And now they're almost back. One more win and they play for the title, preferably against the Chicago Cubs because that sort of perennial loser vs. perennial loser story is too good for the journalist in me to pass up.

I've been staying up late to watch the Indians games with Jared and paying the price the next day in the form of bloodshot eyes and a stuffy nose. I need more rest, but I won't get it until the playoffs are over.

Hopefully they end with the Indians celebrating yet another Cleveland sports championship. As the guy said on TNT the moment the Cavs won their title, "Cleveland is a city of champions once again!" Unreal.

I want the Indians to win because I want the Indians to win, of course. But selfishly again, I want them to win so I can jump up and down with Jared and hug him and think of my dad and probably start crying.

I cry easily these days. I cry thinking about people who are gone (my dad, my sister), pets we've loved, my kids, my sports teams, etc. Only some of those things are truly worthy of tears, but there you have it.

I am, in the end, a nearly-47-year-old suburban father of five doing my best. And I realize my dad was much the same before me.

So it goes. So it has always gone. So it always will be.