The Hope of Spring

Today’s high: 74 farenheit. The warmest we’ve been all year. So many people out today from their hibernation. To me, this time of year speaks 2 things: Easter and Baseball. And since opening day this year lands on Easter, I will speak of baseball first, so I can talk about Easter, on Easter.

People who know me well know that I am very passionate about baseball. I believe it to be one of only a handful of things that are uniquely American. It is heartbreaking, joyous, interactive, seductive, and utterly beautiful. Men who fail 7 out of 10 times are heros. Drunkards, cowards and thieves are projected to mythical status in just an instant. Yet the game is so slow-paced, you can have a conversation with the person beside you. Baseball, like America, is the ultimate paradox.

It is the only game in which the defense has the ball. So many times as Americans, we feel we are playing defense just to stay alive. We believe we are fighting and scrapping to just get 3 shots at hitting the ball. It can be played on a corner lot, or a farmer’s field, or in a city alley. Prisons, Military Bases and Elementary schools have fields. And 20 years before we fought to become a nation for all people, Jackie Robinson ran out of the dugout to play 1st base; making this a sport for all people, no matter what the condition.

Baseball sets and follows the seasons. The Hope of Spring. The hotness and angst of late summer. The cold, dying truths of autumn. Baseball is an American struggle, between individual and collective, reform and rebirth, worker and owner. We have played baseball for hundreds of years. We have warred with foreign and domestic enemies, struggled with ourselves and even the meaning of freedom, and still we have played. Because baseball is THE American struggle, it has survived.

Baseball fosters in us hope of renewal, success even in failure, and the chance to touch home just one more time.

Written for my Dad who loved baseball more than I. Words and emotions fail to describe how much I miss you.