Warm night in June

Alright, at this point I’ve killed it. The economy sucks. It’s not just ‘bad’, this isn’t just an ‘off year’, the economy sucks. The job market sucks, our retirement accounts suck, the national debt sucks, consumer confidence sucks… it all sucks.

Sucks is a very technical term used the world of finance. Developed in 1929 the word ‘sucks’ finds it origination in the rich history of our first Great Depression. (kidding)

But what we need to start doing is getting out of the Catch-22esque cycle that has really made things worse. The economy is down because people aren’t buying as much. People aren’t buying as much because they don’t have jobs. They don’t have jobs because companies aren’t hiring. They aren’t hiring because sales are down. Sales are down because people aren’t buying as much…. Repeat.

How do we get out of it? We start being more optimistic about things. We find the little things in life (see post from earlier this month) that make us happy. We realize that we can have very little effect on the health of the economy with our individual actions, but that we can have a profound and extremely long-reaching effect on our very own lives.

Earlier this summer, on Friday June 12th I went to a Yankees game at Yankee Stadium with my friend Jim. Jim and I go to many games a year. Yankee Stadium is our church. It’s where we go to be closer to God (Mickey Mantle). What happened that night was nothing short of amazing. It truly ended up being a game for the ages. A shocking, once-in-a-lifetime end to one what will be known as one of the all time great endings in Yankee interleague history.

It’s the bottom of the 9th. The game to this point has been a shootout. Each team putting up runs, battling for the win. The Yanks are losing 8-7, but they manage to put 2 men on, Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira. Quickly though, there are two outs. With (then perfect) Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez on the mound, it’s shaping up to be a disappointing end.

Alex Rodriguez comes to the plate, and myself, Jim and 51,000 other die hard New York fans are on their feet. The stadium is shaking, seats are pounding, beers spilled, voices blown… he steps into the box, and then it happens.

He popped it up.
In an instant the entire stadium becomes hopelessly deflated. As the ball carries gently through the summer air, Mets second baseman Luis Castillo glides easily underneath it. He reaches up, he opens his glove, and I turn around to get my jersey to leave.

And then it happened.

Whether it was carelessness, whether the little white ball got lost in the bright stadium lights, or whether it was simply meant to be… he dropped the ball.

Suddenly, like a lit match to a barrel of jet fuel, the stadium explodes in cheers. Jeter and Texeira round third and score. In stunning, breathtaking, and downright improbable fashion, the Yankees go on to win it 9-8 in the bottom of the 9th.

In that moment. That one fleeting, exciting, short lived moment, nothing in the world mattered. Not to me, not to the 51,000 screaming fans around me, and not to the millions of people watching.

As I hugged and high fived dozens of complete strangers… as I ran carelessly up and down the stairs of our section screaming and cheering… as the Yankees formed a scrum and bunny-hopped their way off the field… as I clapped my aching, chapped, burning hands into oblivion nothing else mattered. Not the economy, not the job market, not the bills at home, not the stresses of the office, nothing. It was fantastic.

As I exited out into the streets of the Bronx that night I remember very vividly looking around at the people near me. Elation. Pure, true, perfect elation.

We need to find ways to get back to the way I felt that night. We need to take time to ourselves… to forget the perils of our every day problems. Even if for only a few short lived moments like that warm summer night back in June.

Hope is never lost. I trust in hope. I believe in it.

Let’s all go out tonight and create our fleeting moment…