Gaby loved baseball…
By: Chris Bronk
Tags: Grief And Loss, Baseball

A month ago, my daughter Gabriela Lynn Bronk lost her life. Like my mother and my uncle, I now understand what it is to lose a child. For all of those who live with that terrible loss, I share your grief. While I was unable to find the words to give eulogy to Gaby at her funeral, time has given me the opportunity to say something. I dearly enjoyed sharing her two great loves, baseball and music. In these waning weeks of 2021 Major League Baseball, I’d like to talk a bit about my daughter and the national pasttime.

For a period of several years, Gaby loved baseball. For some reason or another she obsessed about it, learned it, and then played it well. The game allowed her to relate to her grandfather, my father, in a way that the rest of us couldn’t. Gaby was the first girl to play on her middle school’s baseball team. Not the softball team…the baseball team. In elementary school, when she asked to play little league in Bellaire, which had won the World Series of the game, I figured, “Why not?”

In her first season, Gaby struggled to learn the game, but gradually improved. Her team featured the usual lineup of budding stars as well as those kids who get put in the outfield because they had trouble paying attention to the game. She was taller and stronger than about half her teammates. She paid attention and her coach, Moustapha El-Hakam, also known as the 2017 World Series Astros batting glove and helmet guy, considered her a leader and eventually put her behind the plate.

I was blessed to have her on my team for two straight seasons. Her enthusiasm and eagerness to learn the fundamentals of the game of baseball were unmatched. She was also the best teammate a ballplayer could ask for. Always encouraging to others. Her smile was so genuine and could easily brighten up the dugout no matter the score.

Coach El-Hakam was consistent in his fairness and as a result Gaby got put in the outfield too. Happier behind the plate or with her left foot anchored on first base, she complained about being stuck out where the action wasn’t. But sure enough she had the opportunity to make a big play come to her. In a playoff game, a high, but shallow pop fly came to center field. She had watched intently as the ball leapt off the bat, calculated the trajectory, and launched forward, glove extended. I’m not sure how much distance she covered, it seemed enormous, but when she captured the ball in her glove, Tiras Field was for a moment, as an exciting a place as any big league park. I have never cheered more enthusiastically.

That season we started going to games and Gaby got her first foul ball at Minute Maid Field. In the next, she came back a force with which to be reckoned. A grandmother of an opposing player praised her for playing with the boys and having such determination — standing as an example for equality. I learned the frustration of watching her intentionally walked. Mentored by her next coach, Marshall Law, her incredibly powerful swing eventually got her onto the Bellaire league’s all-star team. I learned about that swing the hard way when I accidentally caught it on the forearm. She was a slugger.

Beyond her playing, we set a goal to watch games in all 30 of the major league parks (and got to about 10 before her interests shifted to hearing popular music). At one of these games, in the park in Flushing, Queens that replaced the one I visited as a kid, we shared something very special. On July 6, 2018, we went to New York City, walked Wall Street, rode the train to Coney Island, and eventually settled into two really great seats a couple rows off the field from third base. With the perennially underperforming Mets again tied in the bottom of the ninth inning, we settled in for what could be a long night.

Much to our surprise, the bases began to fill thanks to walks and an error. With bases loaded, the once great, but now near retirement José “Joey Bats” Bautista hammered a grand slam that I felt before I heard it. Amid the cheering I expected a high five from Gaby and instead received the most incredible of hugs, which seemed to channel the energy of all my father’s time with me in Flushing. For a moment, all was perfection.

These memories are my blessing. May our spirits meet again.