Continuing his study or playing baseball

44 although he still has the passion to pursue his father’s. Playing baseball is his father’s passion while studying in the college is his mother’s passion. He keeps on changing the focus of his life between them. So, year after year, I pulled on new team uniform – red socks, gray pants, blue tops, yellow caps – and each one felt like I was dressing for a visit. I split my adolescence between the pulpy smell of books, which was my mother’s passion, and the leathery smell of baseball gloves, which was my father’s Albom 112. Chick keeps on playing baseball because when he plays the game he can picture the father and it can cure him from his lost. However, he also wants to follow his mother’s wish because since his father has gone, his mother always tries to fill up the missing part with her love. He always stays between them and it makes him weak. He does not even have his own self-determination. Thus, when his father suddenly comes back into his life and asks him to focus on baseball again, he experiences interna l conflict whether he should continue his study in the college and make his mother proud of him or follow his father’s command. In his second year in the college, he has taken part in several tournaments which include some potentials baseball recruiters based on his father’s urging. Until one day, there is a talent-seeker who comes to them after the game and offers Chick to join their club. His father supports Chick and directly sets the plan for him. However, at that time Chick is still confused whether he has to follow his father’s plan or his mother’s. 45 I nodded obediently. My mind was racing. “What about school?” He scratched his chin. “What about it?”. I flashed on my mother’s face, walking me through the library. I tried not to think about it. “The St. Louis Caaardinals,” my father drawled, long and slow. He ground his shoe into the grass. Then he actually grinned. I felt so proud I got goose bumps. He asked if I wanted a beer and I said yeah, and we went and had one together, as men do Albom 123. At that time, Chick feels that he will be able to obtain his father’s love again with his achievement in baseball, but he also thinks about his mother. Chick still regards his mother, so he calls his mother to tell her about his meeting with his father. “Dad came to a game.” I was on the pay phone in the dorm. This was well after my father’s first visit, but it had taken me that long to find the courage to tell her. “Oh,” my mother finally said. “By himself,”I quickly added. For some reason, that seemed important. “Did you tell your sister?” “No.” Another long silence. “Don’t let anything affect your studying, Charley.” “I won’t.” “That’s the most important thing.” “I know.” “An education is everything, Charley. An education is how you’ll make something of yourself.” I kept waiting for more. I kept waiting for some horrible story about some horrible thing. I kept waiting the way the children of divorce wait, for evidence to tip my scales, a tilt in the floor that made me choose one side over the other Albom 124. In this situation, Chick experiences double approach-avoidance in which he has to approach or avoid a goal which has positive and negative aspects in it. Like Worchel and Cooper state the theory of double approach-avoidance conflict as a conflict which involves a person in choosing between two goals, each of which has positive and negative aspects Worchel and Cooper 461. Chick can choose to follow his father’s command and pursue his dream to be a professional baseball player. On the other hand, he can also choose to ignore his father, considering his deed to the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 46 family, and continue his life as a mamma’s boy and follow his mother’s command. However, for both choices he has the same consequence that will make him disappointed with his choice. This following quotation shows how Chick solves the conflict. I dropped out to play minor league baseball, at my father’s suggestion and to my mother’s everlasting disappointment. I had been offered a spot in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ organization, to play winter ball and hopefully make their minor league roster. My father felt this was the right time. “You can’t get any better playing against college kids,” he said… When I first mentioned the idea to my mother, she screamed, “Absolutely not” It didn’t matter that baseball would pay me. It didn’t matter that the scouts thought I had potential – maybe enough to make it to the major leagues. “Absolutely not” were her words. And I absolutely ignored her Albom 131-132. Blake and Mouton mention competition as one of conflict resolution; it is seen as putting one’s own concerns above those relationships and is characterized by minimal concern for others’ feelings qtd. in Fitzpatrick and Noller 106. Chick applies competition as the conflict resolution in this problem. He decides to follow his father’s command and ignore his mother. Chasing his father’s love by his achievement is something that he really wants to do. Since he never gets his father’s love purely, at the same time he has already got his mother’s love without any condition set up by his mother. Chick has his own theory about his parents’ love. If my mother said it, I believe it. She wasn’t easy on me, don’t get me wrong. She smacked me. She scolded me. She punished me. But she loved me. She really did. She loved me falling off a swing set. She loved me stepping on her floors with muddy shoes. She loved me through vomit and snot and bloody knees. She loved me coming and going, at my worst and my best. She had a bottomless well of love for me. Her only flaw was that she didn’t make me work for it. You see, here’s my theory: Kids chase the love that eludes them, and for me, that was my father’s love. He kept it tucked away, like papers in a briefcase. And I kept trying to get in there Albom 33. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 47 From the quotation, it can be seen how his mother loves Chick very much and Chick knows that. Although he knows that his mother has more pure love for him, Chick still puts his father’s command as the first priority in his life. Chick does it on purpose. He really wants to get his father’s love and he is willing to sacrifice his mother for that. He ignores his mother and he treats his mother badly by making her very disappointed with his decision of leaving the college.

5. Meeting his father

His father leaves him again as Chick’s baseball career fades. After everything that Chick has done to get his father’s love and attention to him, his father does not even appreciate it. Even, when Chick struggles to find a job, his father does not offer him a job although he has two liquor stores. His father completely leaves him after Chick loses his baseball career. After that, Chick starts his new life by opening a sports bar. Until one day, on his mother’s birthday he calls Chick and asks him to play again in the Old Timers Game. This time, Chick regrets that he picks up the phone. If I had my life to do over again, I would have let it ring. At first I didn’t answer. I was stunned. Although my mother’s phone number had never changed, it was hard to believe my father was calling it. His departure form this house had been so sudden and destructive, hearing his voice seemed like a man walking back into a burning building Albom 156. As soon as he knows that it is his father who is calling, Chick can guess where the conversation will be. He knows his father very well. His father will not contact him if he does not have intention related to baseball world. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 48 I knew where this was going. I knew it immediately. The only person who had a harder time giving up my baseball career than me was my father Albom 159. His father forces him to play in Old Timers Game, his father keeps on insisting him since he still has the ambition to make Chick as a professional baseball player or at least Chick works in the work field which is related to baseball. Chick is already tired to be the victim of his father’s ambition. When his father leaves him after he loses his baseball career, Chick has just realized that his father never appreciates his achievements and even his efforts. Chick tries to state his arguments for not joining Old Timers Game like what his father wants. However, his father is a good debater. He can always win the debate with his own ways. He always knows how to force his son to chase his ambition. It traps Chick in a conflict. The conflict belongs to double approach-avoidance conflict; Worchel and Cooper explain that double approach-avoidance conflict is a conflict which involves a person in choosing between two goals, each of which has positive and negative aspects Worchel and Cooper 461. Chick can choose to ignore his father’s wish and do what he really wants to do without any dictations from his father although the consequence is that he will never get his father’s love like what he always dreams of. On the contrary, Chick can also choose to take part and join the Old Timers Game to pursue his father’s ambition but if he does that, he never has self-determination and his father will always dictate his life. The following quotation shows how he ends the conflict. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI