How Baseball Got in my Veins, My Waking Hours, My Dreams

How Baseball Got in my Veins, My Waking Hours, My Dreams

Reasons and excuses for liking and following the nation's pastime, baseball. In my 48th summer. 

1. My parents raised me in the United States, in the Midwest where there are no mountains to scale, ocean beaches to traipse, or vast deserts or cities to explore. My hometown was crazy about basketball; that said, the sports mentality pervaded overall. Sports were a wholesome delight to pay attention to.

2. Perhaps my dad watched some televised baseball games as I scooted around in diapers, fell asleep in my folk's arms, pushed toy trucks and cars across the floor. Perhaps the summertime lulling poetry of the TV announcers and commentators became medicinal soothing to my unbeknownst ears. Thinking about it further, perhaps I was even exposed to the Boston Red Sox as a babe near my mom's hometown in Hanover, or Newton, or Wellesley, or Wilmington, or Hyannis, or the harborside Quincy or Weymouth of my mom's hard-of-hearing dad and lifelong BoSox fan, Grandpa McWilliams. He lived when they won before the Curse of the Bambino, at the turn of the century into the teens, before World War I. Because of his hard hearing state into his eighties, he probably turned up the sound... TV or radio. All for my non-understanding toddler ears... Yet subliminal messages of early life for returns in the future. Sure, this might make sense. No doubt, I do have genes from this man... Born in 1896, a grey haired, balding octogenarian, with his prominent Coke-bottle glasses and hearing aids, who kept tobacco-produced baseball cards from the turn of the century.

I saw them, these relics of yesteryear, after he had died and my grandma moved into the garage apartment of their son; these antiques colored in printer's ink of an older generation, before photos became ubiquitous, at my uncle Bill's in West Dennis, Cape Cod, when I was around 12. They, these for sure collector's items, were eighty years old then, and worth a pretty penny. Heirlooms from the generations beyond. Some could be folded out to see a player's pose in two different ways, like standing AND crouching.

I never really collected many baseball cards as a kid, but I knew boys like the Murrays down the road, or maybe Jake's brother Zachary, who did this religiously. I appreciated the art and the savvy of it.Oh, yeah, when Jonathan's older brother bounced off the walls when George Brett was hitting .400 in July? What wonder was happening here? The newspaper, a mere box score, brought that much cause for joy and delight?

What was this brew of game and magic?

3. My parents gave me a baseball glove, soft ball, and a baseball cap as a consolation present after having hernia surgery as a four year-old in the Bloomington Hospital. Portents of palliatives to come...

4. We attended a Cincinnati Reds home game against the Pittsburgh Pirates when I was seven (the closest major league team, two hours drive away). It rained, and we left very late. We did get our money's worth, that was a life lesson. This was the Reds, the Big Red Machine, with the remnants of their great teams of the 1970s, like Pete Rose and Johnny Bench. George Foster was heckled close to us, all game. I tracked him for the next few years after joining the Mets; quite the power hitter. He was the last guy to hit at least 50 homers in the 1970s; it would not happen again throughout the entire 80s, the decade that I cared about this game the most.

I witnessed those obnoxious teenagers scream at him that night, without compunction or remorse? Sheer obsessive wicked teen angst? Why? What was the appeal? What was the catch to this phenomenon, keeping little kids up till 1:30 at night? Making older kids shout like crazed loons? The veteran, composed, slugger just standing alone in his sector of the park. He was cool, calm, collected. He embodied the strength and power of what he did. He Foster was great. A celebrity facing vitriol a hate, for the color of a uniform. Weren't those fans Reds home fans? So many ponderous questions at a live sporting event.

5.  By the late 70s the Chicago WGN cable station (channel 9) regularly showed the Cubs, which played all their home games during daylight hours. I would come home from the swimming pool or playing baseball myself and watch and observe the ubiquitous legend, Harry Caray and the more mello Steve Stone cover the lovable losers of the North Side. The Cubs had colorful players with great nicknames, from the Rhino and the Penguin, to the Bull and the Sarge. Caray would sing his seventh inning stretch, and jocularly serenade the no-better-than average catcher, Jody Davis. "Jodeeeee! Jody, Davis! Catcher, without a fear!" The ivy on the back wall, Waveland Avenue, the bleachers, the old, traditional stadium from when my grandparents were small, the north lake shore, the wind blowing out and rain delays. The Phillies beat the Cubs once, maybe 24-22. In nine innings.

What a game! It was fun (nay--incredible!), on an otherwise non-eventful day of the summer of '81 in the heart of the Midwest. 

6. I played bronco league ball in the summers organized; I played with my friends informally. I would play catch with my dad and others, and fantasize with my Wiffle bat that I was a huge superstar in my front living room.

7. At age ten I was electrified by my new found all time favorite player, Tim "Rock" Purple Raines, Senior. I would follow him as closely as I could throughout the 80s, until I left on my mission after the baseball season in 1989. Starting around 1983 I would chronicle his daily stats on sheets of paper that I would measure out columns with straight edges and post his at-bats, hits, and the Expos results. At age 14 my mother took me to St. Louis to see him play against the Cardinals. I loved it. The following summer my dad took me and friend to Indianapolis to see the Expos play an exhibition game against the local triple A affiliate Indians. I saw them play again in 1987. (And '88 and '89).

8. Summers in Massachusetts, I would often be caught in Boston or its suburbs or the Cape, with little else to do but take in the mid-summer classic, the All-Star game. Many times it was Wellesley and I was by myself. One summer, the magic season of 1987, I stayed up late in my aunt's Boston second floor kitchen while my all time favorite Tim Raines came in the 13th inning, hit the game winning triple and earning Most Valuable Player. I fell asleep at 2 or so in the morning like I had won a king's ransom. Dreams were meant to come true, it seemed to me that year.

9. With TV programming in the 1980s I would watch Tim Raines on WGN or TBS when he was playing against the Cubs or the Braves, or on occasion in a featured weekend game on one of the major networks.  I would particularly pay attention to Raines' at bats. I was drawn to his exploits more than anything. What was this odd draw to this player? Why the exclusive attention? By 1986 I observed a youth at church obsessed with the new rookie Wally Joyner; I saw people marvel, shake their heads, and curiously guffaw at his compulsion to share "everything Wally".

Who knows? Perhaps this fanaticism fills in for something else lacking in my and other souls, in our heads. Jared turned out okay. I saw him years later after his mission to Scotland I think I have turned out okay as well. But still suffering some aspects of infatuation with aspects of the sport. Among others.

This all occurred prior to my two year mission to Chile, where baseball was seldom thought of. And, changes would happen there in regards to following and thinking of sports, and baseball. Perhaps the distance and attention to it, or lack thereof for two years in South America, made it seem even more alluring as I returned to Indiana and later Utah.

10. Literature about baseball. Daily sports writers in newspapers (and later the Internet), books and some poet laureates lauding the pastoral mystique of the park and its culture, (see A. Bartlett Giamatti), books devoted to the game, quaint sketches and skits like "Casey at the Bat", Abbot and Costello's "Who's on First?", and George Carlin's "Baseball versus Football" keep the whole enterprise artistically and emotionally close to us... Integration has been a calling card to us as Americans, and baseball has displayed our diversity and its strength, instilling the meritorious values of Doctor King to show us that color of skin has no place in deciding our greatness as a people, one people and not many.

Boys Life and Sports Illustrated were magazines that touted and glorified the sport, ones that I read throughout the eighties. The game of baseball in that decade of my formation gave context to the one I originated from, the seventies. And baseball gave more context to the whole 20th century, learning of World War II and Korean War heroes who left the sport to serve their country, the one that I as a loyal Boy Scout saluted and revered. Baseball was part and parcel of being a citizen like me.

11. My cousin Robbie took me out to a local diamond with his friend near his mother's new place in greater Boston, near that apartment where I watched Raines win the All-Star game late that unforgettable night; my cousin was four or five years older, practically an adult. We took turns hitting the ball around, fielding and shanking down the hits, the cans of corn, the long flies, the line drives, the bouncing swirlers. Later, Robbie took me down to the Cape in his convertible; we took swings in batting cages; I was measured as to my throwing speed.  If I guessed the speed on the third pitch I won a prize. I did. I forget what the prize was, but I will never forget predicting that right. Was this the Deep Magic that Aslan referred to in my favorite series, the Chronicles of Narnia? Baseball has it. Ask Kevin Costner, Bob Costas, Lou Gehrig, any number of historians...

12. Then there was the almost pro from Montana. I went to Kalispell, Montana with my dad and sisters right before my freshman year of high school. Out there I met a young man, maybe Canadian from Calgary, that had gone to minor league tryouts. I tossed the ball with him, me still a 14 year-old would-have-been...Still in the throws of my passion for Raines and the exotic Montreal Expos...

13. Allegiances and rivalries. Most people preferred someone. There were loyalties and long suffering loves, very romantic. My extended family (no small crew) lived and breathed the Red Sox. People in books and movies love the Yankees. Go figure. Hemingway like his guys, his numbers.

In Bloomington people tended to like the Reds or the Cubs, regional favorites. Later, Evan Hill's best friend loved the Phillies because his dad was from Philadelphia. The other Hills, like Jonathan, loved Dale Murphy and the Braves. My good friend loved Valenzuela and the Dodgers because... I can't remember why, doesn't matter. That is just the way it was. Meanwhile, he hated Dwight Gooden, all-everything ace pitcher like Valenzuela, and the Mets. I liked the Houston Astros for a while because I thought their uniforms were cool. Eric Samuelson loved and breathed the Giants. His dad was from Norway via Utah, and he was raised in Indiana, like me. It was probably a player that did it for him as a small kid. That could be enough. One amazing instant could create a fan for life. Or maybe one inspirational team, one year, one pennant... Family members oozed these types of cravings. I remember the adult Gregory girl, (Karla), entranced and enthralled at the Kansas City Royals in 1985. The year of the missed call at first that cost the poor Royals the Series.

Ahh, the humanity. This was life. Not always fair, but compensated for the effort. The long enduring painstaking love of the quest for greatness. Even the best came up short, and that was okay.

Everybody knew this attempted thrust at winning, and failing, like striking out, or getting caught at home, was the mutual understanding of the ever deeper code of honor, to strain, sweat, and even bleed to make that next base...

Sometimes it was just one play. Perhaps from 1959. Or, maybe somebody spoke to you or signed a ball... Or it was your memories or your grandparents, or your mom or dad.

14. The unexpected happens. It does. If you watch enough, you will see it. Crazy, unpredictable, wonderful abnormalities, both to delight and at times scare, even sicken. Real stakes, real bodies and lives, are at hand. However, when the nutty stuff does not happen, the norm is the soul food of the warm months. The crowds gather, the national anthems are sung, the opening pitch is delivered, the game is on. Life is good.

15. In the early days of high school I participated with some new friends who were both smart and devoted to the grandeur and minutia of baseball, and we played in a small group of rotisserie league baseball, where we drafted our own players and participated in an earlier version of fantasy league baseball. I admired the smarts and know-how of these young men who knew computer technology and the passion for stats, the modernizing tools that further advance the mystery, the majesty, the homey comfort, and standardized convention of this unique sport.

16. Speaking of smarts, I was very impressed to witness the knowledge of some of the schoolmates of my sister Jenny. Her group of guy friends would recount and debate whole Yankee squads from the 1930s, or even 20s? They would cover the whole infield and move on to the outfield and pitchers. We, crazy youth of the eighties, had the audacity and sheer will of love, passion, or wanton devotion for trivia to be able to dedicate wayward brain cells to such matters. But scholars and poets and historians would do the same! Were we all deluded and nuts? Possibly, but happily so. And in review, why so many intelligent people so dedicated to such mundane or trivial things as home run counts, batting averages, ERAs and stolen base percentages?

17. My paper route in high school delivered to the Indiana University baseball coach. Some of his players went on to the pro leagues. Some friends and cohorts at school were moving ahead with possible baseball futures after high school.

18. Softball was a fun pastime among church goers and us at outdoor activities during the summer. I learned to bat as a switch hitter as a small child, carrying on this tradition into my teenage and adult life. Another reason that Raines embodied everything that I loved about a baseball athlete. Batting is fun! Watching your players do it was a thrill as well. Sometimes moreso.

Baseball meant so many things to me. It was mercurial and mystifying much of the time, but in the end fair and comforting. It was a steady companion when others were not around. I grew to love it, take solace and joy in it. And I knew that I was not alone, that I was joined by past generations like Grandpa McWilliams and other past generations. Their spirits and memories beckoned in every footstep. Every new at bat was reviving them and their lives. Baseball connected me to the universe.

Could I intuit this then? Did I know what this was? Probably not.

Love can be like this.

Un-explainable. Mysterious. Charming. Foreboding. Hopeful. Rousing. Even dull, or drowsy, yet familiar and nurturing. Like art. Unknown. Yet known. Recognizable, but hard to put your finger on, wrap your head around. Exciting. Promising.

Everything. Nothing. Yes, zen, the existence of an unseen power, was found in this game. Merely a game, it was the life and death of your dreams. It was the manna to the taste of mere mortals, young and old. Radio made it alive as well...

Harry Caray's unmistakable, unbridled, unending, effusive, eternal shout of praise and elation at the end of a fortuitous day in the friendly confines:

"Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win! Holeeeee Cow!"

This and so many others...

"It might be! It could be... It is! Holy Cow! A home run!"

This was my first two decades in relation to the sport.

Grown men were kids with me, all summer and into the fall.

Where dreams came true or were forestalled.

This was the true trajectory of life, right? Even the legendary Ernie Banks, the Hall of Fame Cub who never made it to one World Series, was a true winner, right?

We won for playing, and trying hard. We all won in this game, great and small.

19. I forgot to mention movies...

Baseball movies are classic by nature. Even non-baseball fans like many of them. I will list a few:

The Natural.

Field of Dreams.

The Bad News Bears.

Bull Durham.

Pride of the Yankees.

Jackie Robinson.

The Sandlot.

The Scout.

For Love of the Game.

Mr. 3000.

Moneyball.

Eight Men Out.

The Rookie.

Major League.

A League of their Own.

Some of these films were popular before I left for the mission. Others have done well since.

All these stories portrayed on the silver screen, replayed on television, combined with the real sport, players, fans, and lore to become a part of my childhood. A part of me that will always be accessible to my memories of nostalgia, to reached back to, still alive into my adulthood, in my waking and dormant hours, days and nights.

However, Americana, lots of writers and commentators and some poets, and now a growing international audience, has continued to make the sport more than a sport. It goes deeper.

20. Numbers. Those who really love baseball, and history, love the numbers. Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak, Ted Williams hitting .400, Cal Ripken's playing streak, Rickey Henderson's stolen bases, the current batting champion and home run leader, Ruth, Aaron, Bonds... Clemens, Ryan, Rivera... One of my favorites: Tim Raines led the National League in batting average in 1986, at .336.

21. Baseball allowed for people of all races and walks of life to play on the same field. Blacks rose up from the Negro leagues, like our American shared history of unfairness and pain. Poor Latinos from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Colombia and Venezuela became super stars and heroes. Have you heard of Roberto Clemente? He is everything that is good about baseball and humanity. And then came the Asians... Revering the sport at a new level of understanding.

22.  Poetry in motion. Most of my life I have wanted to know and speak Spanish, or other non-English languages. I have wondered about the reasons for this: my parents had learned foreign languages in Africa? Many people in my church had learned foreign languages? My adopted grandma was from Panama and knew the language? Perhaps because Spanish was so big across the earth, it was a practical way to know a good skill that could come in handy? I wanted to learn it simply because it was cool? I would understand Ricky Ricrdo on I Love Lucy? Perhaps, this draw for this tongue was in the beauty and poetry of the names that I was introduced to in baseball:

Manny Trillo, Ivan DeJesus, Fernando Valenzuela, Pedro Guerrero, Hector Santiago, Tony Pena... What was that exotic squiggly line over the N?

For every anglo Ryne Sanberg, Keith Moreland, Shawon Dunston, Dave Kingman, Dwight Evans,  Jack Clark, Wade Boggs, Pete Rose, aka Charlie Hustle, there was an Andres Galarraga, or from the Big Red Machine alone: Dave Concepcion, Tony Perez, Cesar Geronimo.

The names were musical, magical, and how could Jesus be part of a name? What culture is this? Baseball and this game seemed to be a real life window into other worlds... And later came the Japanese and the Koreans.

All the numbers, the stats live and breathe and combine to create a separate life of its own.

Baseball is more than a sport, more than numbers, more than history, more than the locations.

It is life played out, ever slow and ever fast. It is a dream and a fantasy, it is real and tangible, it is hard and soft. Heartbreak and hope, played on grass, dirt, surrounded by those that watch to love and hate. 

Baseball is a bit like our life on this planet earth. The heavens observe us toil and play, succeed and fail, break out our bats and fold them away. We open days awake and close nights to sleep; we hope to lace up our shoes and run the bases and go home, a winner.

Under the sun and the stars, we live to play again tomorrow.