Baseball for a boy paralyzed from the neck down was a metaphor for the childhood he would never have. But it also became his hobby, his favorite sport, his great teacher. From his iron lung, the writer, now in his mid-40s, offers his eulogy for the baseball season that never was. Mark O'Brien is a writer and poet living in Berkeley, California.

Nearly all of my life my most constant companion has been polio. I was one of those kids Dr. Salk's vaccine didn't reach. But whether in an iron lung or in a wheelchair my constant hobby, my favorite sport, has been baseball.

I used to watch my brother and his friends play baseball in vacant lots. There were never enough guys to make two complete teams. No one owned a catcher's mitt, so no one played catcher; pitches went uncaught.

From the sidelines I recognized the necessity of improvisation in baseball -- and in my own life. Because there was no umpire, balls and strikes were discarded. Because my body didn't "work," I learned to write with a stick gripped in my mouth. One boy might have to play shortstop, left field, AND third base. To survive, I needed to use what parts of my body moved -- like my eyes and my mouth -- to make up for parts of my body that were inert.

Here I lie, a grown man, thinking now about the wasted major league season. From my iron lung I wonder what teams would have made it to the World Series this year.

My teenage afternoons were filled with the firm, American voice of Curt Gowdy, describing the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox. The Sox suffered a slow but perceptible decline in the years 1957-1966 when I followed them.

Despite Ted Williams, despite Carl Yastrzemski, my favorite team never threatened the supremacy of the New York Yankees. On weekends, when Red Sox games were televised, I watched on my father's black and white tv. From my cot, I watched the Sox struggle against adversity.

In 1966 my family moved to California, where I became a fan of the San Francisco Giants. The team had three great players during the late 60s and early 70s. Juan Marichal, the pitching ace, amazed me with his foot-over-head windups. Willie Mayes played every aspect of the fame with flair and intelligence few have equalled.

But I identified with Willie McCovey, the big first baseman who blasted home runs out of the park and ran the bases despite painful arthritis in his hips and knees. The Giants' announcer Lon Simmons once marvelled: "Not only does McCovey run fast despite his arthritis, but he also seems to run faster the further he runs."

It was McCovey's dignity that struck me. He never complained. He never used arthritis as an excuse. He just played and played.

Alas, the Giants never won a pennant.

Baseball is all about heartbreak. The mixed fortunes of the Red Sox and the Giants taught me the inevitability of heartbreak. Even the best pitchers in the game win only half the games they start. The best hitters fail 60% of the time. Even the best teams lose 60 games a year. And last year's rookie sensation is riding the bus to the minor leagues this year.

Despite the heartbreak, I always felt hope. Maybe tomorrow. Despite my paralysis, I always saw the beauty of the game. The ballet of the double play... And after more than 30 years, I still can remember the thrill of the Red Sox scoring eight runs in the ninth to pull out a 13 to 12 win over the Washington Senators.

Growing up, I often feared that polio would end up making my life nothing but failure. But as baseball's best writer, Roger Angell, has written, "There are more important things than winning."

What things are more important than winning? I suppose striving with hope and living in dignity. Perhaps baseball teaches us so much because we aren't aware we're being taught. We just soak it all in: the joys of rooting for a losing team, the poignance of proud young men aging, the drama inherent in every pitch and strike.