What Might Have Been...

There are certain things in our lives that will always haunt us no matter how hard we try to let them go.  Whether they are big things or small things, they are the aftermath of a choice gone wrong.  These are our regrets.  I don’t care if you say or think you don’t have any but whether you know it or not, we all have regrets.  Maybe you don’t think about them or wish to go back and change them but at some point in your life, you’ve thought back to a specific moment and wondered what would have happened if you selected a different option.  And of course the ultimate question then becomes, if you had a second chance, would you do it differently?

 Last year, on this day, Roy Halladay stepped onto the pitcher’s mound at Citizen’s Bank Park and made his first ever Major League Baseball playoff appearance.  This was the moment he had waited for for his entire career.  This was the reason he wanted to leave the Toronto Blue Jays organization.  This was what he had become a Philadelphia Phillie for.  However, on October 6, 2010, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay did much more than just start in his first career playoff game.  On this day a year ago, he wrote his own chapter in the history books when he threw a playoff no hitter in the opening game of the National League Division series against the Cincinnati Reds.  I had tickets to that game.  I turned them down.

One year later, as sit here and think about watching that game on TV, the regret still churns in my stomach.  I let the chance to see a piece of history go simply because it was an early game so I would have had to leave work early to get there which I wasn’t sure I could do and  the tickets were expensive.  Sure I could have used some vacation time or just spent the money but ultimately, I let all the reasons not to go keep me from listening to the one thing that should have out weighted all the rest and that was that I wanted to go. 

Now I know that in the grand scheme of things, missing a baseball game is really not a huge regret but it is something that I would change my decision on if I got the chance to do it all over again.  That is pretty much the reason why when I came up with all the things I wanted to do this year that I included go to a playoff game on my list. I really didn’t care what sport; I just wanted to see a game that meant something more than just another game added to a team’s win or loss column. Earlier in the year, I got to cross that one off when I went to see the Philadelphia Flyers play the Buffalo Sabers in the Stanley Cup playoffs, but while I saw a great game and the experience was incredible, I still would have traded it all in for the chance go back to last October.

This story is one that I’m sure you can all relate to.  Missed opportunities or wrong decisions can haunt us but since life doesn’t have a rewind button, all we can do is accept our choices while secretly hoping that we will one day get another chance to right our wrongs.  Second chances are rare and maybe they don’t really ever correct the mistake we made in the first place but hopefully they can make the sting of regret a little less intense.

Tomorrow is October 7^th, 2011 and the Philadelphia Phillies behind pitcher Roy Halladay, will take the field for the final game of their National League Divisional Series with the St. Louis Cardinals.  The winner of this game will continue on in hopes of being the 2011 Major League Baseball World Champions and the loser will start what will be a long winter vacation.   The game might not end up being a no hitter or a piece of baseball history but as I watch the Phillies play tomorrow, I will definitely be thinking back on that game from a year ago and smile from my seat inside Citizen’s Bank Park because I was not stupid enough to make the same mistake twice J  GO PHILLIES!!!

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