Baseball is magic.
You don’t have to agree with me. You can laugh. Scoff. Roll your eyes. You can extoll the virtues of the gridiron and prattle on about how boring and slow baseball is. You can complain about steroids and overpaid, spoiled ballplayers and how a shitty beer at the ballpark costs north of $8.
None of those complaints or arguments will ever change my mind on this one simple fact: baseball is magic.
February inevitably yields to March. The bitter, cold winds slowly abate, and soon amount to nothing more than Old Man Winter’s death-rattle. Thoughts wander to the sweet promise of spring lurking around the corner. The boys of summer pack up their gear and head to Florida and Arizona. Before too long the crack of a bat serenades us, filling our heads with visions of lazy, sunny days. March then yields to April, and for many of us the real start of spring isn’t the solstice or a designated day on the calendar, but rather opening day - the start of six glorious months that begin in the chilly, sun-dappled days of early spring and end in the crisp, cool nights of autumn. Everything in between is nothing short of bliss.
When I was a kid, the sun rose and set around baseball season. Hours were spent in front of the television, watching game after game. Trips to Veterans Stadium were a much-anticipated treat. (I think growing up with The Vet makes me appreciate just how beautiful today’s “retro” ballparks are. The Vet was truly a dump among dumps.) Baseball cards were collected and organized and traded with neurotic vigor. Summer days were spent playing hour after hour of Wiffle Ball. Each neighborhood backyard was its own stadium, complete with its own unique, individual quirks. There was the yard where a well-hit foul ball down the first base line ended up smack-dab on Rt. 15. There was the yard where towering bushes made a home run to right field a near impossibility. There were moments of undeniable glory and moments of soul-crushing defeat. Entire summer vacations were played out in those backyards, and if you think there wasn’t magic in the hot, summer air then you clearly weren’t there. You’ll never understand. Unless, that is, you felt the magic yourself. Maybe you felt the magic in your own backyard. Maybe you helped to spin that magic, like a dusty, sweaty shaman of the Wiffle Ball diamond. Hell, maybe – like me – you still feel that magic in the air when opening day rolls around.
This year marks the first summer in ages that I haven’t played fantasy baseball. (Or, as I like to call it, Dungeons & Dragons for the guys who made fun of people who played Dungeons & Dragons.) I bowed out due to time constraints, but I’ve already, only three days into the season, found a nice added bonus to my decision. I find myself not giving a tin shit about statistics. I’ll be frank – even when I played fantasy ball I didn’t care about stats all that much. Now? Now I feel free. Liberated. No longer a slave to ERAs and WHIPs and BAs. The classic thinking goes that, among baseball fans, there are numbers people and there are people who view the game through a prism of pure, unbridled emotion. I’m definitely the latter, and it feels good to not worry about the stats of some guy on a team I don’t give two shits about.
As I began to write this piece last night, I had the Red Sox game on. (An MLB.tv account and a Roku box - Best investment ever.) I already felt moments of elation and moments of head-shaking frustration and disbelief. I was back on that emotional rollercoaster that is a Major League Baseball season, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m finishing this up on a Sunday morning, and as I write the Red Sox are a disappointing 0-2. They also play today at 2 PM, and I can’t wait to tune in and cheer for them to notch that first win of a long, sure-to-be-exciting season. From disappointment springs optimism, and I can’t help but feel pity for those people whose experience as fans of the game is nothing but negativity and frustration. The key for me is that, no matter how deep my love for the game, I still remember that it is just a game. It’s just a game. It’s supposed to be fun, and it’s supposed to be infused with magic and it’s supposed to transport us above the petty, ulcer-inducing realities of our daily lives.
So here’s to another hot, long and wonderful summer. Here’s to sunny days spent listening to the game while I sit in the yard sipping on a cold beer and hanging on every pitch. Here’s to warm nights with west coast games to clear my mind and unclutter my head after a long day. Here’s to baseball. Here’s to that particular brand of magic that not even adulthood can drive away.
