Phthursday Musings: Play Ball!

Friends, it’s Opening Day.

On the most recent Poscast, Joe Posnanski had Bob Costas on, and Costas made a comment about how baseball is supposed to flow at a leisurely pace. He brought this up in the context of how a lot of baseball games today are much too slow, much too long. But the point about how things are supposed to be leisurely… that really resonated with me.

I don’t know about all of you, but I could really use some leisurely pace. I don’t mean I need to shut down, I don’t mean I need to plod. I mean that everything being so damn fast, or everything being just sitting around and doing nothing… no, I want a pace, but I want it to be leisurely.

The 2020 season, shortened though it was, was very helpful for my mental health. I’m not sure any therapist would have prescribed a baseball game! But maybe they should.

And I think this season will be even better. And this, I think, is the year that my goofball kid will start to catch on.

This week he had his first two baseball practices. Last year would have been his first year, but, well, you know.

The team he’s on is for 7 and 8 year olds. Some of the 8 year olds actually seem to kind of know what they’re doing!

Much as I am with soccer, with baseball I get to be Extra Dad Coach. Not the person in charge of anything, not the person who says a lot, but… you’ve got 12 kids this age flopping around? 4 grown-ups isn’t a bad ratio.

The second night we were doing a drill. Pick up the ball like it was a grounder, then step / point / throw to first. I got to stand at first and jump and squat and lunge for all those throws. I hadn’t taken that many throws at first since I was 12. What occurred to me: how insane 16 inch softball is.

I admit I’ve been a little afraid about all this. I feel like, when I first started playing ball - at his age, and it was only t-ball - that I wasn’t as silly, I was paying more attention, I already understood what was going on… some of which is probably nonsense, but hey, it’s my daydream, right? But I want him to not get spooked by having to remember things, having to pay more attention… there really is a lot more to know to just go out and play baseball than there is to just go out and play soccer. It’s different if you’re talking about playing them both well, but, yeah, I totally understand why soccer is the world’s sport, and why baseball is this crazy American thing.

Today, Opening Day, two things happened in ball games that I have never seen before.

In the Detroit - Cleveland game, Miguel Cabrera hit a home run in what looked like a blizzard… and couldn’t tell if it was a home run or not, so when he got there, he slid into second. Then he got up and trotted the rest of the way home.

I mean, how do you hit a home run in this?

In the Los Angeles - Colorado game, Cody Bellinger hit a ball, the outfielder seemed to catch it, hit the wall, ball popped out, went over the fence. That’s a home run… except the runner who started on first, Justin Turner, thought the ball had been caught, and ran all the way back to first, passing Bellinger along the way. By rule, this meant Bellinger “passed” Turner on the basepaths, and was ruled out. Instead of a two-run home run, it goes down in the books as a one-run single.

The latter, which sounds totally impossible, has, in broad strokes, happened before, in one of the most famous games in baseball history: the Harvey Haddix near perfect game in 1959.

I didn’t see Haddix mentioned anywhere else today. I just remember that nugget, as with so many others, because baseball is a game so entirely obsessed with its past, and as far back as I was playing t-ball, I bought into the whole thing. I think the game’s obsession with its past and its leisureliness are very much tied up together…

So I’m writing this with the TV on, and they are literally introducing every single person from the White Sox dugout. They introduced the video coordinator. They introduced the massage therapist. They introduced the analytics coordinator. (It’s Shelley Duncan!) They introduced the entire active roster. And the game is being plaed in Anaheim! There are like 417 people in the stands and now they know who the Sox assistant strength and conditioning coach is!

… Why?

Speaking of Anaheim… I want to make a point of seeing them play this year. Last chance to see Albert Pujols. And to finally see Mike Trout in person. Angels don’t come to Chicago until September 14. Hopefully by then we’ve got a pennant race going and The World Is Sort Of Normal.

In the interim, if - as I believe will happen - we achieve Some Of Normal by the beginning of summer, I’m hoping to see games in at least a couple other places this year. Kansas City hopefully. We’ll see where else.

It does seem kind of weird to be thinking more seriously about such a thing now that I’m in my mid-40s. But the thought is calming. I mean, good golly, sitting in a stadium for four hours with peanuts and Cracker Jack? I won’t care if I ever get back.

In the summer of 2020, for all of the nominal down time, it doesn’t feel like we did a lot of… sitting around outside. We of course weren’t going anywhere to sit around outside. But it doesn’t even feel like we were doing it at home.

I feel like 2020 convinced me to be outside more. The only way we could go anywhere was to go on a walk, or to drive to someone where we could take a walk. So we did. And for as much psychic damage as the year did, that being pushed outside - even to just be outside by myself - I feel like I had lost some of that. Today was probably the last cold day of the season (the high was about 39) and from here on out, I want to be outside. Every day. I will figure out how to work outside. Maybe I will even figure out how to work outside somewhere else. Maybe I will even figure out how to wheel a TV outside and watch Sox games outside! Who’s with me here?

The other night I found myself blabbing a lot about playing baseball when I was a kid. I think I might have put my poor wife to sleep with it all.

I remember so many details about being out at the diamonds. During my games. After my games. During my cousin’s games, when I was an assistant coach. At my mom’s softball games, and wow, I remember those being at a whole lot of places. Right this minute, I have a crystal clear picture in my mind of being at the Ace of Diamonds for one of her weekend tournaments. I remember a co-rec tournament there, a rare time my mom and uncle were on the same team, and my lefty uncle at bat catching a pitch with his right hand because the pitcher didn’t know how to pitch to a lefty. Crystal clear.

There is something about baseball (and softball!) which brings so many of those memories - composites, even snapshots - into such clarity. It’s not that every one of those memories was necessarily great… but when I think back to my childhood and what was really wonderful for me, baseball pops in so much. And I’ve gone so many years without thinking much about it, without talking about it. But dwelling on it some this week, I consciously think about why it feels so important for me to share it with my goofball.

It looks like our crazy 16 inch league will be able to play this year, after people get vaccinated. Maybe one of those nights he can actually come see.

I grew up and almost all of my classmates were white. But I had multiple non-white teammates. I am serious when I say this: School taught me that whites were better. It was baseball that taught me otherwise. Yes, it is a game, but it is truly much more.

I realize that baseball isn’t the hip sport. And it’s for understandable reasons. There are systemic problems with the game. A lot of the guys I played with when I was young… they wouldn’t have been able to afford what’s now expected of kids. That’s stupid. MLB has contracted the minor leagues. That’s stupid. Oh, there’s a whole lot of other stupid I could mention. But why dwell on all of that? It wasn’t formative for me because it was stupid. It was formative because it was beautiful.

My sentiment is certainly nostalgic. But I don’t see the game as an anachronism. It’s still more than that. I’m hopeful it’ll be good for my boy, like it was good for me, like it was good for a lot of other people in my family.

Hopefully I’ll see some of you out at the park this summer. We could sure all use it.