Baseball Is Back

Well, baseball is back. Kinda. It is reported that the owners and players have agreed on a shortened season of 50 games to start at the end of July. To some people, this is meaningless. They are the haters. They wouldn’t watch baseball if it were played naked. To others, it is infuriating. They are the purists who are still upset over night games. To me, I’m just glad. I love watching baseball almost as much as I used to love, in a prior body, playing it. 

I’m a fan of all sports. As so many have said, sports is the perfect meritocracy.  You don’t win a game because you were born rich and had you father bail you out of every real estate deal you ever fucked up (oh, excuse me – I didn’t mean to get political on this one). No, you only win in sports because you played better. 

Also, sports is the perfect drama. Merriam Webster defines “drama” as “a composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue . . “ Remove the “composition” part, and how is that not a sporting event?  In fact, by removing the “composition” part, sports becomes even more dramatic. You can have your Hamlet, but Shakespeare wrote it all out in advance. The actors, and many in the audience, already know how it’s going to end. (Spoiler Alert: Hamlet dies). Not so in sports. At the start of a game, and often well into it, you have no idea how it will turn out. The drama is intensified because the ending is a mystery to everyone.

Like so many other aspects of society, my need to keep sports in my life was exposed during this pandemic.  I found myself glued to the tube watching anything remotely called a “sport.” I even caught myself watching a game they actually call, “Cornhole.” I first turned it on hoping that it would be what its name implied. But, it wasn’t.  It’s actually a contest where people throw beanbags at a ramp with a hole in it. The object is to put the bags through the hole. It is played by professional “Cornholers” with shirts like billboards advertising various Cornhole related products.  And I was glued to it.  

I’ve been a lifelong New York Giants fan except for three years when I lived in Washington, D.C. and was seduced by the then charismatic Redskins. If I were Catholic, I would confess that sin and hope for absolution. I can also tell you the entire roster of the New York Knicks of the early 70’s. And I hold my breath every time Tiger Woods swings a club. 

But, it is baseball that has captured my soul. My memories of my youth are strewn with baseball. I grabbed my glove and threw any ball I could find against any wall I could find. I played in the street. I played in the sandlots. I played in organized leagues. I played on school teams. You get the idea – I played.

And I loved my father for many reasons. The potent bond we had with each other largely began with baseball. We watched and went to games together. He educated me on its glory and its history.

While my father was certainly my idol, I had another idol. Like millions of others my age in my area, it was Mickey Mantle. I vividly recall wondering at age 5 or 6 whether both of my idols were the same person. Why not? After all, I never saw my father and Mickey Mantle in the same place. My father was away all day when the Yankees played – very few night games then. Suppose he just changed his clothes, donned that pinstripe number 7 and became everythingI idolized. I don’t recall exactly when I abandoned that possibility.  It was likely at the same time that I came to appreciate that life could disappoint. 

Yes, of course, I’ve changed a little.  Beside the Yankee score, other of life’s problems have inserted themselves into my consciousness.  Those other problems, though, have not pushed baseball so far down into my cerebellum that it has lost its life’s luster. Hardly. In fact, to the contrary, I can still focus on baseball and, at least for a little while, allow those other problems to be pushed aside.So, bring baseball back.  I don’t give a shit.