Floyd Meshad, Sr., or “Grandpops” as I lovingly called him, was among the most charismatic individuals one could ever hope to encounter.  The son of a Lebanese immigrant, loving husband of 60 years and father to six children (my Mother being in the middle), Grandpops wore many hats while working to provide for his family through the Great Depression.  After serving in World War II, he worked as a traveling salesman, owned a diner in the industrial district of Birmingham, Alabama, and operated a cemetery and funeral home, where he worked tirelessly until just days before he passed.  In an poignant twist of fate, he ended up driving himself to his own deathbed, as if to let God know he would take care of his death in the same diligent manner he took care of his life.  A man of tremendous faith, he never missed church on Sundays, at times attending services seven days a week.  A teetotaler, he never drank caffeine or alcohol, spare the occasional Coca-Cola, yet he had a never-ending supply of energy and enthusiasm.  Many nights following a 12 hour work day, Grandpops would help put the kids to bed, kiss his wife goodnight, and head out to play cards in smoke-filled rooms until three or four in the morning.  Whatever sleep he needed, he found in 10-minute naps during his lunch break.  He was was truly larger than life.  As a kid, I can remember being both excited and almost terrified to encounter him on family visits.  I was barely 13 years old when he passed, but his presence was firmly cemented in my mind.  In the years since he died, my Mother has shared countless memories of her father, painting an elaborate picture of what fueled his passion for life.  A few years ago she recalled a moment when she, no more than seven years old at the time, asked her father, “What is the meaning of life?”  Without hesitation, he smiled and said, “Ball.”

Above all passions outside of faith and family, my grandfather was a baseball man.  He was good enough to have played college football alongside the lionized Paul “Bear” Bryant at the University of Alabama in the mid 1930’s, but his favorite sport was always Baseball.  From the age of five until he died at 81, it didn’t matter where he was living, or what he was doing; he always had a ball and glove within reach, should the chance to play arise.  A mercurial businessman, he purchased the majority share of the Birmingham Black Barrons of the Negro Baseball League in the mid 1950’s.  With the great players of the Negro Leagues having followed Jackie Robinson to the majors, and the popularity of the Negro League in decline, the Black Barrons soon folded, at a rather large financial loss to my grandfather.  Grandpops was never too concerned with the financial outcome of his baseball ownership.  He loved the game so much, he simply wanted an excuse to spend the majority of his time immersed in Baseball.

“Ball”, Grandpops said, is much more than the simple object with which one can play a game.  It is a symbol, an idea … a word that represents a fundamental truth for the existence of life in the universe.  As people look to the heavens, they see the celestial bodies, the planets, moons and stars, perfectly round in shape and traveling in circular orbits.  A ball has no edge, no beginning, and no end.  “Ball”, he would say, is what “keeps young men focused in the singular moment.”  The world at large slows down, allowing us to watch, to hear, to play, and to have, a ball.  Baseball itself is a game of continuous motion, and at the same time, a collage of singular moments, a meditation that clears the mind of all else.  When the bat is swung to meet the ball, stored tension is released in a surge of energy, a pure joy that few moments in life can equal.  Indeed, there is an even more divine energy that, when the ball leaves the hand of the pitcher and lands squarely in the glove of a catcher, connects the two people across time and space.  I can recall those sacred moments as a kid, tossing the ball with Grandpops, expressing a love and a bond between us greater than words could describe.

I had the great fortune of my formative years in Atlanta, Georgia coinciding with the rise of the hometown Braves.  As I was beginning to understand and love the game, the Atlanta Braves were transforming from the laughing stock of the league into the “Team of the 90’s”.  I grew up in a family of Braves fans, many having suffered through the dark ages of the 70’s and 80’s teams, playing in the most poorly maintained stadium in all the land.  For my own sake, growing up and knowing only a team that played in every October until I was 22 years old, solidified my fanaticism for the game.

One of the sadder parts of my youth was that, as much as I loved watching ball, on the field, I was always afraid of it.  I had discovered acting in the 4th grade, and by the beginning of my freshmen year in high school, I stopped playing organized sports of any kind.  Soon after, I was bit by the filmmaking bug.  Film school followed high school, and by my junior year attending Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, I was working regularly on commercials and music videos as a production assistant.  By the time I graduated, I had worked as the key set production assistant on a few feature films, and once as an assistant director on a commercial.  All of the stars seemed to align for my career in film, with each job yielding more connections and greater potential for future success.  As a young, over-zealous, eager-to-please assistant, I gave little thought to the long-term affects of the grind that was taking place working on a film set.  The work day for a PA consist of (on average) 14 to 16 hours at a break-neck pace, with barely enough time to go to the bathroom.  Oftentimes, the work week began with a 5:00 AM call time Monday, but by the end of the week, we were on Moscow time.  A 5:00 PM call time Friday meant working until sunrise Saturday, destroying any chance of a true weekend to recover.  After four years and more than 600 days worked on film sets, the damage to self was borderline catastrophic.  In January, 2010, a hellacious two-week night shoot in sub-zero temperatures keyed a complete collapse of my physical and mental health.  It was a pretty solid sign that the lifestyle was not working out, after all…

The body heals far quicker than the mind, and in the first years following my burnout from the film business, my days were marred by a bizarre mixture of depression and anxiety.  I could be minding my own business at any common location you could think of, like a grocery store or a Barnes and Noble (back when there were standing bookstores), and without warning or provocation, I would be engulfed in a panic attack.  Suddenly, my limbs felt electric, my chest tight, and my stomach burning with a sharp pain that had no recourse.  There was nothing I could do to stop it, no medicine that would cool the fire, I simply had to wait until the attack died down.  My sleep was erratic at best, often getting only 2 or 3 hours a night, feeling both exhausted and anxious all the next day.  I had lost my ability and energy to work, all but giving up on the desire for life’s pursuits, thinking that a panic attack would render me useless at any moment.  There was nothing to help keep me calm, that would make me smile, or give me peace of mind, spare for one single thing: Baseball.  With a panic attack in full force, I could lie on my couch and watch the Braves play ball, and in that moment, I felt peace, perhaps even a small amount of joy.

I could say, as many including my cohort Coach Bounds have said, that baseball saved my life.  It would be true in many ways, but to say baseball alone saved my life would do a disservice to the many elements that helped get the wheels back on the car.  More than helping save my life, baseball reawakened that joy in my soul that was buried in the mire of my previous life.  It’s been said that the only true measure in life, beyond all accomplishment or failure, is time.  Everything that happened before us, and everything that happens after us is eternity.  Our time on this Earth is short, a small window to experience all that we can, understanding what little we have control over in the space given.  When we reach the end of our time on Earth, a wise soul hopes to think back on a life filled with joy.  I can only hope as much for myself when my number is up.  One thing I do know is that my grandfather, Floyd Meshad, Sr., looked back on his life with the greatest of smiles, at peace with the knowledge that during his time, he had an absolute “Ball.”