We became friends from the first time we talked. We had many things in common. We had both had health problems when we were younger. I had suffered from Asthma, and he had issues with a congenital heart condition. Because of this, we had both been frail and hadn't ever been very physically active.
I'm not sure what the driving force for either of us was to play baseball, but we both had a want and a need to play. We had both tried out for the local Little League team and had been rejected. They were a bunch of elitist jackasses and told us both we would never make it. Neither of us were much into being told no, especially from a smug Dairy Farmer who thought he was a baseball coach, so we didn't give up and tried out for the Farm League.
That was where we met, out on the baseball diamond. Brett made Pitcher and I made Second Base. As I said before, I'm not sure what drove us to play baseball to begin with, but after about the fourth week of practice, we both saw the movie Major League and the rest is history.
This guy's the out you've been waiting your whole life for.Brett was a very sweet kid and had a big heart, but he also had a temper. One of the funnier stories of our childhood friendship was how I got my first BB Gun. I got twenty-five dollars from my dad and bought it from Brett's mother. He had shot a neighbor kid who he didn't like after they got into an argument, so his parents had taken it away from him. They were afraid he would just do something like that again, so if I hadn't have bought it, they would have thrown it away.
It was due to one of his fits of temper that our friendship became cemented. During one of the early scrimmages in the season, he got into a fight with one of the kids from the opposing team and the Umpire over a call on a pitch, and after a few expletives, he was benched for three games.
He was not only our best pitcher, he was basically our only pitcher, so the coach asked for volunteers to replace him for the three games. Being a good friend, I volunteered. If Brett couldn't pitch, at least he could rest easy knowing someone who wasn't going to try and steal his position was substituting for him.
It turns out that not only was I good at it, I had the best fastball in the league. My first game, I pitched a perfect game. Not exactly what we had planned, but I still didn't take his position. I remained on Second Base and only pitched as an alternate.
We were a new team in the league, and we were waiting for it to come down from the powers-that-were as to what our team's name would be. I'm not sure if it was a cosmic joke or some kind of crazy fate, but we were designated The Indians. We wore that mantle with pride and made it stand for something. Between Brett's Rollie Fingers pitching and my Babe Ruth hitting, we brought the team to victory for the two seasons we played.
As for our moment of glory, the first scrimmage of our second season was against the Little League team that shot us down--The Yankees. We beat the pants off of them, and then rubbed it in. They say revenge is a dish best served cold. I don't know about that, but it's pretty damned tasty.
Around the beginning of 1992, my parents had decided they wanted to visit Israel. Family friends had moved there some months earlier and the father's boss called my father to offer him a job. It was an opportunity of a lifetime that neither of my parents wanted to turn down, so they went for it.
Brett and my relationship was somewhat strained for the rest of the time we had together. We were more than friends, we were brothers, and we were about to be separated. Neither of us officially knew how long it would be, or if we'd ever see each other again, but in our hearts, we both knew it was the end. We even tried to get his mother to let him come with us, but she understandably said no.
In August, we said our goodbyes and that was that. I wrote him a few times, but in the end it was too painful, so I just stopped writing. There hasn't been a day of my life I didn't think about him. A few years back, I searched Myspace and saw that he had a page. He looked happy and like he was doing okay.
I thought about re-establishing a connection with him, but in the end I thought it would be best to just leave things the way they were, with all the good memories intact. Last night I found out my friend, Brett Andrew Griswold, died on April 17th, 2008. He died of natural causes, due to his congenital heart condition. He was 29.
His mother, Ellen, died three days ago. I'm still not sure, but I think if I had it to do over again, I can't say that I would have been any better at staying in touch with him, but I think I would have at least sent him an e-mail when I found him a few years ago.
He was my best and only friend in my childhood, and he will be missed.
