RMJ 8 February 21-22

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21-22 ● Kissimmee and Houston

I felt a little guilty this Friday morning. For one thing, I was leaving before the end of the workout to go back to Houston for my daughter’s wedding. For another, I was bailing out on the second day of full-squad workouts.

Ashley has always been a most-considerate and dutiful daughter. Her mother and I divorced when she was only two years old. My first wife, Nancy, worked a lot, and Ashley was a latchkey child. Somehow she raised herself to be a model of decency on her own.

When she agreed to marry Craig Klaasmeyer last summer, she asked me when I would be going to spring training. I told her it would be the end of February or the beginning of March. The wedding date was set for February 22, and by the time I became manager, she had already paid deposits on the church and the Museum of Fine Arts for the reception.

I felt pretty safe leaving the workouts in the capable hands of Bill Virdon and the rest of the staff. And I also felt somewhat pampered to be flying first-class. It wasn’t so much the service I enjoyed, but the space. I didn’t even have a drink. But I was able to spread out my statistical information for the teams we would play in April, so I could set a pitching rotation.

At 6’4” and 230 pounds, I don’t fit comfortably into a coach seat. But I got so comfy on this trip that I even took a nap.

 

If I didn’t feel regal at this point, I did by the end of the weekend.

The rehearsal dinner was hosted by Craig’s father and mother at the Ritz-Carlton. I started a series of toasts that lasted well into the night. We adjourned to the lobby bar, where I found a cigar I had been longing to smoke: an Arturo Fuente Hemingway. It was a masterpiece. I was, indeed, a happy man. Judy and I carried the celebration into the wee hours of the morning.

We awoke about 10 a.m., and after gathering ourselves around the newspaper for an hour, we headed for yet another reception — this one at the River Oaks Country Club. Broad glass windows, two stories high, opened onto the first tee and the 18th green. It was a lovely, springlike, sunny day, and the Klaasmeyer clan from Nebraska and the Dierkers from California could not have been witness to a better slice of Texas.

After the party, my mother and father, my brother and his wife, and Judy and I all went to watch Ryan play the first-round game of his basketball tournament. Naturally, they won in a breeze.

Ryan will turn twelve in a few days, and we all marveled at how he was growing up. Summer before last, he went with my folks on an Alaskan cruise, and he almost blew it by refusing to wear a coat and tie. Now he was sporting a blazer and slacks, and real hard-leather shoes. He had his hair slicked down and was clearly, in his own mind, the most debonaire of the bride’s contingent.

The wedding came off without a hitch. It was a beautiful ceremony, highlighted by a stirring performance by The Houston Children’s Chorus. The reception was wonderful as well. Astros president Tal Smith and his wife Johnnye were there, along with vice-president Bob McClaren and his wife Dana.

Everyone congratulated me on hosting such a fine affair. In truth, it was Ashley who did the planning. She and Craig even paid half the freight.

Ashley is an attorney now, and Craig is an investment banker. They are going to Hawaii and Napa Valley on their honeymoon. But it isn’t their financial success that I am so proud of; it’s their relationship. I have seldom seen two people so google-eyed head-over-heels in love.

They never shed a tear and neither did I, though I came close when the children sang The Lord’s Prayer at the end.

 As Craig and Ashley exited the museum and descended the steps to their waiting limousine, revelers from both sides blew bubbles of joy. As they stepped into the limo, I gave Ashely a little kiss.

“Enjoy your honeymoon in the West,” I said. “I’m heading East to revisit mine. I’ll see you back here in a few weeks, when reality sinks in on Opening Day.”