This Memorial Day weekend there will be 45 Major League Baseball games played. There was one Stanley Cup hockey game and an NBA playoff game with final scores in which one team beat the other.
In the big picture, none of it truly matters.
We banter daily around the water coolers about the "battles" that we won.
Battles aren't fought on the hardwood or at the rink. On the diamond or on the gridiron. Battles are fought on the battlefield only.
Blood isn't shed by guys in shoulder pads, cleats, or jock straps. Real blood is shed by a team with no pads at all.
The word battle should only be reserved for those skirmishes in which our men and women fight far from home, defending honor and displaying courage. The term 'battle' should not be abused when we speak of CC Sabathia buzzing one by the head of Youk and the ensuing square dance that takes place between overzealous boys.
A battle is a revered term we should sanctify when we speak of our troops upholding life and liberty as we know it.
We speak of "our team" as if we suited up ourselves and faced the opposing pitcher on the mound. "Our team" suits up every day to fight an enemy that it doesn't even know. To put their lives on the line so that we can sit back and watch KG take on Kobe.
"Our team" only wishes that it could find the time to play ball in the backyard with a child they have yet to meet. They pray that they could sit around the dinner table and break bread with their mother and father. With their sisters and their brothers. To enjoy the family barbecue we are about to enjoy instead of sharing chow in a mess tent with their adopted brothers and sisters.
While we lie in bed watching the Celts defeat the Lakers, "our team" wishes that they could simply be falling asleep next to their wives or husbands or their fiances. While we love our Yankees or our Sox, "our team" loves their country so much that they are willing to have shrapnel buzzing by their heads at a speed that would make a Nolan Ryan offering look like a Wakefield knuckler.
And "our team" doesn't wear Red Sox or pinstripes. They don't have a closet full of Cubbies t-shirts like you or me. They have a wardrobe that is without diversity. Clothes that they put on each and every day that show their true colors. Red and white and blue.
So when you flip on the tube today and watch your baseball heroes wearing their patriotic red white and blue caps, think of the true heroes.
Not Brady, Moss, and Welker, but Darren Dodge, USMC (my son-in-law), Ryan Moore, USMC, Elizabeth Drake, Air National Guard, Cpl. Lee Haywood, USMC, Robert Corran USMC-RIP, Kevin Messmer, 10th Mountain Cavalry, and Captain Jennifer Harris, USMC-RIP.
They are the heroes that truly went to battle today, yesterday, and the day before.
And they are truly the only team we should be rooting for. These men and women are the true patriots that should fill our hearts today and every day.
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