Bart Giamatti was right: Baseball breaks your heart, and sometimes in ways you don't see coming.
Trust me. It's more painful to try keeping up with baseball games through glitch-filled computer feeds than to watch for hours during scorching Texas summer afternoons.
My heart hurts now because for the first time in my son's nearly 21-year-old life, I haven't gotten to watch him play the game we both love.
Kirby is playing for the Geneva Twins of the New York Collegiate Baseball League. But I'm in Fort Worth, Texas, trying my best to follow the games on GameTracker, Twitter and Ustream, which all too often is like trying to watch a game through a fast food drive-through speaker.
I'm not sure when Kirby fell in love with baseball. Maybe it was the sweltering summer night in St. Louis when my wife and I took Kirby and his twin sister, Mackenzie, to a game at Busch Stadium. Kirby stood on my lap, and after three innings, he was mimicking the mannerisms of the outfielders — swaying, crouching, pounding his fist into an imaginary glove. He was barely a year old. When Brian Jordan homered and stadium fireworks erupted, Kirby's eyes danced with delight.
After that, Kirby, baseball and I had a standing summer-long date. We played catch till it was too dark to see. I pitched batting practice in our front yard, where scarred patches are still etched in the grass.
I helped coach his teams, designed newsletters for parents and baseball cards for the players. Once he reached high school, I did what I could to remain involved, serving as announcer or playing between-inning music. Whether his teams won or lost, whether he went 4-for-4 or took an oh-fer, I reveled as he grew as a player and person.
Despite earning all-state baseball and academic honors, Kirby didn't get offers to pursue his dream of playing Division I college ball. So he landed at North Lake College in Irving, Texas.
My wife and I were thrilled to catch nearly all his weekend games during the next two years, preserving a family ritual extending back to when Kirby played tee ball as a 4-year-old.
After he left for the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, we traveled thousands of miles in the spring to support Kirby and his Golden Lions teammates.
But now Kirby's in upstate New York.
He's been embraced by locals and formed strong friendships with teammates. It's been a great summer. And I'm selfishly jealous of the Geneva residents who've gotten to watch him play.
Kirby isn't a home run hitter, but he's honored me with bombs on Father's Day in Omaha, Neb., and in San Antonio.
Last year, at a tournament in Nacogdoches, Texas, he hit two in his first two Father's Day at bats.
This Father's Day, I sent a playful text asking him to hit another for me. After that night's game, he responded: "Well Pops, I almost got you one. Ha ha. Wallbanger to dead central for a 2B." I wish I could've seen it.
But I know this, too: My job as a father was to keep him safe, instill values, love him and prepare him for life.
He's now a grown man. He doesn't need me in the way he did at age 4, 12 or even 18.
But I still miss him. So I'll keep following Geneva Twins games by trying to decipher choppy livestream videos, cussing the darkness when the video or audio or both cut out just as Kirby is stepping to the plate. It's our summer thing.
Geoff Campbell teaches at the University of Texas at Arlington. He's a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan, but his favorite team is the one Kirby plays for.