The Last Game

Last night, May 26, 2017. I'm sitting in my living room in La Crescenta, laptop open, watching a grainy live stream of the West Coast Conference tournament. Six hundred miles north in Stockton, my son Ted is warming up in the bullpen for what has just become the final game of his college baseball career. The Loyola Marymount Lions are facing elimination against BYU, and I was supposed to be driving up today for the championship game—if they could pull this one out.

The Lions are down 5-1 in the seventh inning. It doesn't look good.

Then Ted gets the call.

Where It All Began

The journey to last night in Stockton began on a different field entirely, decades earlier, with a bucket of tennis balls and a toy wooden bat that looked enormous in four-year-old hands. I bought him his first glove and baseball the day he was born—I know that was more about me than it was about him. But before he was old enough for organized teams, we were out in the backyard—me pitching underhand, him swinging with all the ferocity a preschooler could muster.

That little boy who slept with his glove under his pillow became the kid who mimicked batting stances he saw on TV, who lived and breathed Cubs baseball like his dad. He had a quick bat and a sharp eye, even as a little kid. He didn't just play baseball—he loved it. He studied it. From the time he started in Tee Ball, I saw his competitive fire up close. He wanted to win, sure—but more than that, he wanted to be better. To do it right. To work harder. To be ready.

His first Little League hit was an RBI triple off Nate Rousey—I still remember poor Nate cried afterward. His first home run came the next season. With each passing year, the instincts sharpened. The arm got stronger. The glove got quieter. The bat got louder. By the time he was a senior in high school at Crescenta Valley, he wasn't just a good player—he was a leader, a shortstop you built your infield around, a pitcher you trusted in big moments.

And then came that magical evening against Arcadia High—four years ago. Two outs in the bottom of the seventh, the Pacific League title hanging in the balance. CV down 4-2. Ted stepped up to the plate and launched a three-run homer into the night to give us a 5-4 victory and the championship.

Crack.

That sound—you know the one. The sound that makes a stadium rise as one. The ball sailing high over the left-center-field fence. But this wasn't some major league park. This was a high school diamond where my son had just become a legend, where years of backyard practice and Little League dreams crystallized into one perfect swing.

The College Years: Learning to Let Go

When Ted committed to LMU, it felt like the natural next chapter. Division I baseball—his dream realized. But it also marked a profound transition for me: from the sidelines coach who knew every pitch and every at-bat to the distant observer, I was lucky that he was close by so I could watch home games and catch away games when I could, I followed LMU's box scores online, and loved the chance to take him to dinner after games.

But college baseball is different. The talent gap narrows. The stakes feel higher. And parents have to step back, to trust the coaches, to let their kids figure it out on their own. The intense involvement of Little League and high school gives way to something more like faith—faith that all those years of instruction, all those conversations about effort and attitude and what it means to be a teammate, have taken root.

For four years, I've watched from afar as Ted found his place on the team, from third base his freshman and sophomore years to a pitcher in his senior year. I watched while he learned what it meant to compete at the highest amateur level. There have been highs and lows, moments of brilliance and stretches of struggle. The typical arc of a college athlete learning that talent alone isn't enough—that consistency, mental toughness, and team-first thinking separate the good from the great.

Last Night

Which brings us to last night in Stockton, to that elimination game, to Ted jogging in from the bullpen with the season on the line.

Down 5-1 in the seventh, facing a BYU rally with runners on base, this was exactly the kind of pressure moment we'd talked about since he was little. Not the glory moments—not the home runs or the strikeouts that make highlight reels—but the quiet, crucial situations where everything you've learned gets distilled into execution.

He shuts down the scoring threat in the bottom of the seventh. It wasn't perfect, but it was good.

Then, he pitches a spotless eighth inning.

Watching from six hundred miles away on that grainy stream, I can feel something building. The Lions start scratching and clawing in the ninth, mounting a comeback that brings them to within one run. Tying run at third base, two outs... For a moment, I can see it all unfolding: the impossible rally, the championship game I'll drive to today, one more chance to see him pitch at this level.

But baseball doesn't always deliver the endings we script in our heads. The Lions fell short, 5-4. The comeback comes up just shy. Ted's college career ends not with a championship, but with 1⅔ innings of relief, one strikeout, no runs allowed, and a team given every chance to win.

It was a beautiful ending, even in defeat.

What I'm Realizing This Morning

I had hoped to see Ted play live one more time. To make that drive to Stockton for today's championship game, to sit in unfamiliar bleachers and watch my son take the mound in the biggest game of his college career. That's not in the cards.

But as I watched him walk off that field last night for the final time, something unexpected happened. Instead of disappointment, I felt overwhelming gratitude. Not sadness that it's over, but appreciation for what we've shared.

I don't need one more game. I have a lifetime of them.

I have those early backyard sessions with tennis balls and patient instruction. I have Little League memories of gradual transformation from enthusiastic kid to serious ballplayer. I've coached him, watched him grow, seen him develop not just as a player but as a young man who understands what it means to be part of something bigger than himself.

He has high school glory—that championship-clinching homer that still gives me chills, the no-hitter against Loyola High earlier that spring, the Pacific League MVP award. The moments when talent met opportunity and created magic.

And now I have this: watching him finish his competitive career with grace, professionalism, and the kind of performance that reminds me why I fell in love with this game in the first place. Two crucial innings when his team needed him most. No fanfare, no headlines, just a job well done when it mattered.

The Gift of the Last Game

The thing about being a baseball parent is that you spend so many years living for the next game, the next season, the next level. You mark time by tournament weekends and playoff runs. Your calendar revolves around practice schedules and game times. And then, suddenly, it's over.

What I'm learning this morning is that sometimes the endings we don't choose are more meaningful than the ones we plan. I thought I wanted one perfect final game, one last chance to see him pitch with everything on the line. Instead, I'm getting something better: the realization that Ted has become exactly what we hoped when he first picked up that toy wooden bat.

A player who can be counted on. Who can handle pressure. Who can leave everything on the field whether the lights are bright or dim, whether the crowd is thousands or just a few parents and coaches watching a live stream. Someone who understands that how you finish matters as much as how you start.

Ted's baseball career has taught him about effort, teamwork, resilience, and what it means to be reliable when others are counting on you. It's taught me about patience, pride, letting go, and the beautiful complexity of watching your child pursue their dreams at the highest level they can reach.

What Remains

Now he's moving on to a career, to a life beyond the diamond. But somewhere in him will always be that four-year-old swinging the big wooden bat, that Little Leaguer crossing home plate after his first homer, that high schooler rounding the bases in triumph, that college pitcher walking off the mound after giving his team every chance to win.

And somewhere in me will always be the dad who got to watch it all unfold, one game at a time, one memory at a time, grateful for every single pitch.

Even the last one.

Especially the last one.

Because that's when I learned that the end of something beautiful isn't always sad. Sometimes it's just complete.

I'm grateful, too, that I was able to capture last night's game. That live stream, which I managed to grab, now holds Ted's final collegiate performance. Having it preserved means our family can revisit this moment—not just the statistics or the outcome, but the grace under pressure, the professionalism, the way he carried himself in those crucial innings. Years from now, when the details start to fade, we'll be able to watch again and remember not just what happened, but how it felt to witness the beautiful completion of a chapter we'd been writing together for over two decades.

Sometimes the most precious gifts come in the form of technology we take for granted—until it captures something irreplaceable.

Searching for Mom's Meatloaf

There's a certain kind of recipe that lives only in memory—formless, undocumented, yet stubbornly persistent in taste and feeling. For me, it's Mom's meatloaf. The one she made when we were kids, back when Tuesday nights meant the smell of onions browning in her old cast-iron skillet would drift upstairs to where we were supposed to be doing homework. The one that would somehow taste even better the next day, straight from the fridge, nuked in the microwave until the edges got those perfect crispy bits, and served with some mixed vegetables and a helping of Del Monte canned pears (yes, with the heavy syrup—because Mom believed dessert didn't always have to come last).

I can still see her in that kitchen sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She'd hum along to whatever was playing on the little radio on the counter top—sometimes Debbie Boone, sometimes the local news, sometimes just static that she'd forgotten to tune out. Her hands moved with the confidence of someone who'd made this meal a hundred times before, never measuring, never second-guessing. A pinch of this, a splash of that, all while keeping one ear tuned to our chatter from the next room.

I've asked her about it a few times over the years. She always gives that same good-natured shrug—the one that says oh, honey—and points to her old recipe box, which is really more of a time capsule. Index cards soft with age, yellowed newspaper clippings held together with scotch tape gone brown at the edges, and the occasional note scribbled in my grandmother's careful shorthand that only Mom can decode. But no meatloaf. Whatever magic formula she used back then is either lost to time or never existed outside her muscle memory and instinct—the kind of cooking that came from feeding a family on a budget and making it feel like abundance.

Cooking was one of my mom's love languages, though she never would have called it that. She was from a generation that showed love through action, not words. But you could feel it—in the way she made holiday meals feel like grand occasions even when money was tight. In the homemade birthday cakes that somehow always turned out perfect despite our ancient oven's uneven heating. In the way she'd quietly orchestrate dinner for six while juggling homework questions and referee disputes, never once making it seem like a burden. That meatloaf was part of that rhythm, part of that daily offering. It wasn't fancy—we weren't a fancy family—but it was made with intention, with the kind of love that asks for nothing in return.

I didn't inherit the creative cooking gene—let's be honest about that. Where Mom could look at leftovers and see possibility, I see only confusion. But she did teach me something just as important: how to read a recipe with patience, how to follow steps without cutting corners, and how even a simple meal, made with care, could carry a little of that same love forward into the next generation. So I try. Even now, all these years later and eight states away from that kitchen, I find myself chasing that feeling. Recreating it, however imperfectly, in my own smaller kitchen with its different sounds and different light.

Sometimes I'll catch myself humming while I cook—usually something I heard her humming years ago—and for just a moment, I'm eight years old again, setting the table with our mismatched plates and waiting for Dad to come home from work.

So recently, I decided to try my own version. Call it meatloaf archaeology—digging through layers of memory, trying to unearth something that might never have been written down in the first place. A little educated guessing, a little wishful thinking, a little trial and error. And this time, miracle of miracles, it came out close. Maybe not exactly Mom's—I suspect that particular magic is locked in with her recipe box secrets—but close enough that my younger self might've mistaken it for the real thing if I'd come home from school, backpack slung over one shoulder, baseball cap askew, looking for something to tide me over before "F Troop" came on and the world got quiet for thirty minutes.

Here's what I came up with—part memory, part hope, part love letter to Tuesday nights that felt like home:

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My Almost-Mom’s Meatloaf (Baked Alaska Style)

Ingredients:

For the Meatloaf:

    • 1½ pounds ground beef
    • 1 cup quick-cooking oats
    • 1 packet au jus mix
    • 1 egg
    • ½ cup milk
    • 1 small onion, finely chopped
    • 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
    • ¼ tsp black pepper
    • ½ tsp minced garlic
    • 1 tbsp mustard
    • ¼ cup ketchup

For the Mashed Potato Topping:

    • 4 servings mashed potatoes (homemade or instant—no judgment)
    • Optional: more ketchup

Instructions:

Preheat the Oven: Set to 350°F and lightly grease a loaf pan.

Mix the Loaf: Combine all meatloaf ingredients in a large bowl. Don’t be shy—use your hands. That’s the only way to get it right.

Shape and Bake: Press the mixture into the loaf pan and bake for 45–55 minutes, or until the center hits 160°F.

Make Your Potatoes: Whip up your mashed potatoes while the meatloaf cooks. Feel free to add chives, cheese, or a little garlic if that’s your thing.

Top and Broil: When the meatloaf is done, spread the mashed potatoes over the top. Want to go full retro? Add a thin layer of ketchup on top of that. Then broil for 3–5 minutes to get a little color and texture.

Rest and Serve: Let it rest a few minutes before slicing.

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Is it exactly like Mom's? No. The honest truth is, nothing ever will be. But it feels like it is, and maybe that's the point. Maybe the secret ingredient was never something you could measure or write down—maybe it was just the love that went into it, the hands that made it, the home that held it.

I'll keep tweaking it here and there, chasing the flavor that lives in my head and my heart. But in the meantime, this one's earned a spot in my recipe box—right between "Mom's Overnight French Toast" and “Christmas Kolachky,” in the place where memory meets hope.

And who knows? Maybe someday, twenty years from now, one of my grandkids will come home hungry and remember this version just the same way I remember hers. Maybe they'll chase their own perfect meatloaf, adding their own touches, their own love, their own memories to the mix. Maybe that's how the best recipes survive—not on paper, but in the hearts of people who understand that some things are worth remembering, worth recreating, worth passing on.

That's what Mom would have wanted, I think. Not perfection, but connection. Not the exact recipe, but the feeling it gave us—the sense that we were loved, we were fed, we were home.