Some of us live every day as a summer day

Mike Burke

The last any of us heard or saw of the baseball postseason was Oct. 15, 1997 when the Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 1-0, in 11 innings at Oriole Park at Camden Yards to win the American League pennant.

Mike Mussina pitched what was likely the game of his life as an Oriole, going pitch for pitch with Indians starter Charles Nagy, working eight innings, allowing one hit, two walks, zero runs and striking out 10. But, of course, it wasn’t enough because the Orioles didn’t score and Armando Benitez gave up a home run to Tony Fernandez (not Manny Ramirez, David Justice, Matt Williams, Jim Thome, Sandy Alomar or Brian Giles; Tony Fernandez) with two outs in the 11th inning.

It was the most depressing ballpark I’ve ever left in my life, and I left Memorial Stadium on the final day of the 1982 season and on the final day of its baseball existence in 1991. It was so eerie, and so deathy quiet that night, because every Orioles fan in the place knew it was over — that owner Peter Angelos and manager Davey Johnson would not be able to put their egos aside and solve their differences, and that the two wonderful postseasons Johnson and general manager Pat Gillick provided Baltimore and Orioles fans with would soon be a distant memory.

Twelve years later, it’s a memory that still cuts like a knife each time some of us watch postseason baseball and try to remember what it was like when our favorite teams were often involved into October (can I hear an “Amen!” Bucco fans?)

Deepening the sense of melancholy, naturally, is the fact that yet another summer has come and gone.

The true harbinger of fall for me, and the dead-on realization that summer is over? The U.S. Open tennis tournament, the last of Higson’s corn, and until spring training, no more e-mailing baseball back and forth with my friend Jeanie, who closed her next-to-last e-mail with, “I hate it that the season is almost over. The winter seems so long without baseball.”

I always think of “To Kill A Mockingbird” at this time of the year, because, after all, summer was over and Dill Harris went back home to Mississippi. And then there was Jem and his sister Scout. They had to go back to school — and to that blasted Halloween party. And then there was Atticus, the kids, Maudie and Arthur “Boo” Radley ... left to face the fall alone.

Perhaps it was Harper Lee’s novel that served as the inspiration for A. Bartlett Giamatti when he wrote of the game of baseball, “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”

It can all be so semi-depressing if you allow it to be. But then you think about folks like my friend Lamar “Moose” Minnick, who turns 94 on Monday. You think about Moose and you know everything’s going to be all right, because to know Moose is to know why he’s called Moose, and it’s to know one of the kindest, hardiest souls you’ll ever have the pleasure to know. His heart truly is as big as his physical stature.

Moose, who was quite the athlete for Allegany High School, is a man who has known hard work, hardships and true happiness. Yet for Moose, each new day is an adventure he can’t wait to live.

Twelve years ago, I watched that postseason game in Baltimore with Moose and his lovely wife Mary, who left Moose in March, yet remains the joy of his heart and the light of his eyes. Moose’s daughter and son-in-law sent us all to the ballgame to celebrate Moose’s birthday, you see, and though the Orioles didn’t hold up their end of the bargain, it was a perfect evening for Moose, being able to spend the day and night with his wife and his daughter while watching a great ballgame play out to determine the American League pennant.

It was a huge night for Mooses, of course, as Mussina’s nickname is Moose. And every time Mussina would get two strikes on a batter, the sellout crowd would loudly croon, “Moooooooose!” and upon each Indians batter going down on strikes, a gigantic “MOOSE!” would appear on the scoreboard in center field.

“It’s really disappointing the Orioles lost,” Lamar “Moose” Minnick said as he filed out of Oriole Park with his wife, his daughter, his friend and 47,000 other quiet souls. “But wasn’t that real nice of the Orioles to put my name up there and for the fans to wish me a happy birthday like that all night long?”

We all sort of looked at each other in silence, before we realized, “Yeah. It sure was nice of the Orioles to do that, Moose. Happy birthday!”

So be sure to find Lamar Minnick on Monday and wish him a happy birthday. And, you know, while we’re all at it, let’s do ourselves a favor and try to be as much like him as we can be. Because, you see, to my pal Moose Minnick, every day of his 94 years here has been the most wonderful day there is.

Smack dab in the heart of summer.

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.