Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa...

On Facebook this week, my sister’s college roommate asked a guy I went to elementary school with how he knew the Moles family. (Neither of them are probably aware that this conversation showed up on my news feed, but I enjoyed watching the exchange.) I haven’t talked to this guy since fifth grade, but his response to her asking about me was, “I went to elementary school with Brian and I know through Facebook he loves the Cubs.”

Baseball is a part of me and always will be. Even people I don’t communicate with know I love the Cubs, though Facebook does give me a platform I didn’t have ten years ago. When people ask me my dream job, my first answer is always second base for the Chicago Cubs. Ryne Sandberg was my favorite player as a kid and his job will always be the one I want.

Baseball is the greatest game on earth to me. I know most of the country finds it boring and too slow, but that’s what makes it perfect. Whomever invented the game (no one truly knows who the inventor is), along with a few very slight and helpful changes made here and there over the years, knew what they were doing: to align the diamond so a ground ball to a defender would, in most cases, create an out, but if that ball is hit in the hole or slow enough, rewards the speed of the base runner; to make basic outfield dimensions so a sacrifice fly, in most cases, creates a play at the plate, rewarding either the base-runner’s speed or outfielder’s arm.

The game is perfect to me. People often make fun of the game for being steroid-troubled, but that matters very little to me. Yes, I agree taking steroids and growth hormones are illegal and should not be done, but look at what they did for the game. The summer of 1998 was one of the most fun baseball seasons I can remember. Sosa and McGwire going head-to-head to break Roger Maris homerun record, and being friendly about it the whole way, brought hundreds of thousands of fans back to the game. We all knew then that McGwire was taking something, but we didn’t care. We care now because it’s easy to forget how much we enjoyed something we’re now sour to (McGwire’s day in front of Congress didn’t help our good memories of him stick around either).

The season starts three weeks from Sunday and I can not wait. Can it get better than a three-day weekend with family for Easter and the baseball season starting Sunday evening? I’m not sure it can (Well, it could if the Cubs and Reds were playing instead of the Red Sox and Yankees, but I understand that move…sorta).

Here’s a story Buster Olney posted yesterday in his daily blog on espn.com. It represents all that is great about the game of baseball (after you read it, we can all go watch Field of Dreams):

A couple of years ago, I was cleaning out some old trunks in the basement and found a familiar small tan box that I had kept in a desk drawer as a kid. Originally, it had housed a fishing reel that my grandfather had given me, but in time, I took out the rarely used reel and replaced it with a keepsake that didn't quite fit in the box, lightly bowing out its top and bottom.

On Sept. 29, 1974, the Expos played host to the Philadelphia Phillies at Jarry Park in Montreal, and among the 23,326 fans that day were the members of the Central Vermont Little League. We boarded a bus that morning, and I carried with me that baseball, and a mission: I wanted to get Willie Davis' autograph.

I was crazy for the Dodgers and Davis had played 13 seasons for Los Angeles, and some of my first baseball cards were of him in a Dodgers uniform. Before the 1974 season, he was traded straight-up to the Expos for reliever Mike Marshall. But to me, he was still a Dodger, and wore the same uniform number that I did -- No. 3 -- and I went to Jarry Park that day devoted to the idea that Davis would sign my baseball.

But as with most things in life, I really had given no thought to the question of how that would happen before we all settled into our seats on the third-base side, about 25 or 30 rows behind the Montreal dugout. Our family was chained to our dairy farm by the twice-daily milking cycle of the cows, and I had been to only one other major league game, at Fenway Park in September 1972, and I never even thought of procuring autographs at the time.

And besides the questions of how to best position yourself for an autograph -- Along the foul lines? Near the outfield wall? -- I was a shy kid, and major league baseball players to me were nothing less than gods; to ask someone like Willie Davis for an autograph, for me, was like the Cowardly Lion approaching the Wizard of Oz for a wish. I was completely overwhelmed, which is why I remained rooted in my seat before the game, and then right on through the first six innings.

I do recall specific moments in that game, such as Ken Singleton launching a first-inning grand slam, something he remembered clearly when I asked him about it many years later. But mostly I sat in my seat and tried to summon the courage to go to the railing behind the Expos' dugout and ask Davis for an autograph.

Now, 36 years later, I know that the notion of going to the edge of the dugout during a game and asking for an autograph is completely absurd, out of the question, a nice way for you to be intercepted by security. But at 10 years old, I had no idea that there was autograph protocol. I figured if a player had a free moment, he would sign a baseball. This is what my expectation of a benevolent god was at the time.

The Phillies batted in the top of the seventh. The records show that Del Unser grounded out to first base to end the inning, and then as the Expos ran off the field, I made my move, bouncing down the aluminum steps of the grandstands and reaching the railing quickly, just as Davis approached the steps in front of me.

I probably said something along the lines of "Mr. Davis, can I have your autograph?" and extended my baseball and a pen.

And Willie Davis reached up and signed my baseball, in a swirl of blue ink.

I turned around and there was a line of kids forming behind me, but Willie Davis was gone, off to do his work; in fact, the play-by-play record from that day shows that he led off the bottom of the seventh.

When I got home, I took the reel out of its case and replaced it with the ball that Davis had signed, where it remains, his signature faded.

I never spoke with Willie Davis again, never met him in person. But on at least one day, he made a dream of a 10-year-old kid come to life, fulfilled hope, and I presume there were many moments and days like that for him. What power he had in his life.

Willie Davis passed away Monday, at the age of 69.