Seams

It’s a curious passion of the human spirit, but hope seems to forever spring eternal. Whether founded on real opportunities or just wishful thinking, hope is nevertheless there, abounding with endless possibilities and a certain singularity unique unto itself. It is, in fact, what makes life promising and ever changing.

So it was for the Cummings family, my family, of Washington, Missouri. A family centered on Christian beliefs and an old fashioned work ethic. Beyond this, however, we had an insatiable love of baseball, more specifically, the St. Louis Cardinals, who plied their trade a mere forty miles away. But those forty miles might as well have been forty-thousand miles, as we could only admire and dream from afar.

That is until, my grandfather, Kyle “The Breeze” Cummings came along. He would not only alter the Cummings family history, but that of Washington, Missouri and major league baseball.

A warm summer wind brushed across my face as I stood watching my son, Jake, sitting in his grandfather’s lap. My mind drifted back to a time when I’d sit in my grandfather’s lap, too young to truly know the greatness of the man, but even then sensing there was something special about him. Ah, when we’re young, everything is taken for granted, nothing is questioned, which is as it should be, but then as you get older and passing becomes part of the equation, regrets arise from wasted opportunities and precious moments lost.

I remembered my grandfather telling me that life has seams, like the seams on a baseball, or the seams in a glove. They could be stretched, or frayed or even broken, but they could always be put back together. Who knows if it was his love of the game or maybe his love of life, whatever it was, he was a man of inimitable worth and inspiration.

Baseball is a timeless game that weaves its magic, heartbreak and exhilaration, yet somehow stays charmingly unchanged – this then is the story of three generations of my family, as told to me by my father and
grandfather, cast against the landscape of the heartland of America and its national pastime, enduring a depression, a world at war, tragedy and death, but never giving up or giving in, persevering as only the human spirit can.

My name is Ty Cummings and this is our journey.