I did this once but I was much younger.. 2 or 3 years old. It was a championship game with 30-40,000 adoring fans in the crowd. A few scouts were in attendance. Television news vans lined the local streets, congesting even the quietest of neighborhoods. I could barely notice. The only person that I wanted to be at that game was my father. I had never met him before. I didn't even know what he looked like. "He definitely isn't here. You're on your own out there," my coach yelled out from the dugout while I took my lead from thirdbase. When I took off from third for home, the catcher stood up and glared at me. We made eye contact. "Son?" he whispered through the catcher's mask. It was my dad. My father was the catcher on the other team. As I got closer to him and closer to scoring the winning run, time slowed down. Glancing upwards, I saw a face that looked like mine. It was weathered by age. Stress. Bad decisions. A lifelong dependency on chemicals that only created stages of temporary oasis. A life without off-spring, whom were left to manage on their own. And in that moment, I forgave him. Tears rolled down his cheek as he prepared to tag me with the ball that waited patiently in his glove. He reached out and I shouted, "Catch you on the flip side, Pops!" I flipped over his right shoulder and landed cleanly next to the plate. I tagged the plate with my baby hand. The game was over. We all got ice cream and then I took a really long nap.