Brewers Losing Game 5, but I Don’t Care

My Milwaukee Brewers are currently losing to the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-1 in the eighth inning . . . but I don’t care.

You might be wondering why this is so.   Have I lost my love for the Brewers?  (Um, no.)  Have I decided that baseball isn’t that important?  (Well, no . . . it’s still what it’s always been.)

Or is it that baseball isn’t as important as someone else’s life?  (You’re on to something if you picked this option.)

Look.  One of my best friends is in the hospital in Colorado, and I don’t have the financial wherewithal to go visit him.  He has bacteria in his spine, brain and heart; I was contacted by a different friend who let me know what was going on.

I talked with my friend, very briefly, earlier this evening, and he sounds very ill.  He’s been in the hospital for a week and it doesn’t sound like he’ll be getting out any time too soon, either.

Whatever’s gone so wrong for his health that he picked up a major bacterial infection and has landed in the hospital is such a terrible thing that it’s driving out much of anything else.  I don’t have many details, not that they’d probably help if I did; I just know he’s ill, he’s too far away for me to visit, and I can’t do anything to help besides pray.  (Which I am.)

Anyway, the Brewers still have Game 6 in Milwaukee, and can maybe win that.  My brother has a ticket for Game 6 and I really do hope the Brewers will win and tie the series back up at 3-3.

But for now — just for this one game — I’m a lot more worried about my good friend than I am about the Brewers’ World Series hopes.  Because the Brewers can always try again next year for the World Series if they miss it now (it’ll be tough to get there without Prince Fielder, who is assuredly going elsewhere as the Brewers cannot afford the huge contract Fielder wants, but at least it’ll be possible); my friend’s life, on the other hand, is in a real life and death struggle and I’m far more concentrated on that than I am about any sports team, no matter how much I appreciate them or the game of baseball in particular.

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Edited to add:  I have added a tag with my friend’s name, Jeff Wilson, for those who knew him.  I’ve had a number of people ask me what Jeff’s illness was; this is the main post where I discussed it.

I really wish I hadn’t felt the need to add the tag, though; it really stinks that Jeff is no longer alive to talk writing, politics, and the world at large with as he was a most excellent conversationalist.  (And my best friend.)