The Fan Maker

Dear Mr. Prior,

It was with sadness that I learned of your retirement from Major League Baseball. For a player who showed so much potential, a flash of brilliance, it is always disappointing to know that we must close the book with no hope for a comeback.

I was 10 in 2002 when you made your debut with my hometown Chicago Cubs. It didn’t take long for you to become a household name, which most certainly included my home.

Until that year, I had only been to one Cubs game. I was a mild fan. As the 2002 season began, though, I couldn’t avoid the excitement swirling around. I began to follow the team with you in the middle of it. You were relatable, a young star bringing baseball to a city. I would check the newspaper every day, just to see what you’d done. When I went to a Cubs game that season, I bought a collector baseball with your name and jersey number on the back. Today, that collection has swelled to over 40 from more than 20 ball clubs, and yours still holds the top spot on the shelf.

By 2003, “Prior Fever” in Chicago had reached critical mass. You didn’t let us down, with an All-Star selection and a third-place finish in the Cy Young Award voting. We would have elected you mayor of the city if given the chance. Your numbers could have spoken for themselves. Instead, the Cubs won the National League Central and brought playoff baseball to the North Side for the first time in 6 seasons. Between you and Kerry Wood, it didn’t matter what happened on offense, you would shut things down on the mound.

The Marlins series was epic. The Cubs seemed in the driver’s seat. Maybe it was just my bias, or the skew of Monday Morning Quarterbacking, but it just felt like our year. In game 6, you threw 7 innings of a masterpiece. In the eighth inning, everything changed. Maybe it was the Bartman play. Maybe it was Alex Gonzalez’s booted ground ball. Maybe it was a curse placed on us by an angry goat owner. Whatever it was, the momentum swung and that was the end of things. We fought, clawed and begged. But the loss from that game gave all of the positive momentum to Florida, who overcame another Cubs lead and took the World Series by storm.

Watching the ending of that series, I cried. I had never cried because of baseball before. I was old enough to know that there was no crying in baseball, yet loved the game enough to know that there absolutely is.

As we would come to learn, though, the ending of that playoff series was also the end of your dominance. Flashes of brilliance from then on were permeated by periods of injury and struggles. Your tenure with the Cubs ended, and you bounced around the league, looking for different places to restart your career. All the while, your fans hoped. I hoped. I followed each team, wishing that a roster spot would open up and that number 22 would come out of that bullpen.

In reality, it seems, it wasn’t meant to be. Now, though, you have the opportunity to move on to the next part of your journey. Front office management, where you can make careers for the next generation of baseball stars, broadcasting, where you can give life to the best sport in the world, or coaching, where you can craft a new arm, a better swing. All of these opportunities come together to allow you to do what you’ve been doing since May 22, 2002: making baseball a magical experience for those who get to watch you play.

So this retirement is a party, not a funeral. We celebrate the brilliance of a couple of seasons of unhittable dominance. We remember the incredible emotions that came with being a Mark Prior fan. And we thank you, I thank you, for giving me the best thing any ten year old could ever ask for: a baseball hero.

Your fan,

Austin Zoot