Baseball is back from Florida to Arizona this week, and as the Boys of Summer chase down those autumn dreams, they’ll paint us more poems and pictures for our Aprils-to-Octobers. Americans are still flocking to the diamond, and they always will, because this is our game.
We played it in the school yard and replay it in our minds. We still watch, and root, root, root for the home team, no matter the odds. A lesson learned in our dawn that carries us to our setting sun.
We’ve been playing this game for over 200 years. Mostly for recreation, it was derived from many of games: town-ball, cricket, stool ball and old cat. Pay for play was a foreign idea back then. It was believed that a professional athlete was not of high moral character. On June 28, 1846 all that began to change forever.
The New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club played the first professional baseball game in what is now northern Manhattan, in New York City. The Knickerbockers were formed the year before, late in the fall, and had finally scheduled a game for play, and charged admission. The Knickerbockers lost that day 23-1 to a professional cricket team, but the American pass-time was born.
The great game of baseball is played everywhere, from school yards and back alleys, to college campuses and billion dollar cathedrals. It’s played by young boys and old men, by aspiring amateurs and millionaire professionals. It is a game with a leisurely place, that asks for blinding speed.
Baseball has been here through all of our great American history. It was here when Lincoln held the Union together, and both sides played on the battlefields to pass time while awaiting orders. Fenway Park opened as we mourned the Titanic, and the ‘House that Ruth Built’ began New York’s roaring twenties. Jackie Robinson started the civil rights movement, and from Shoeless Joe to Pete Rose each generation has lost their innocence.
Baseball is not just a game, it is an institution. It’s the game our parents shared with us, theirs did alike and so will we. The only game that the defense starts with the ball. A game so priceless, it is played on a diamond. Where spectators were first donned fanatics, and slams so momentous we call them grand. Yes, this is and always will be our game.
Our history has been marked by the time of baseball, though it’s our only game without a clock. From Honus Wagner and the Big Train to the Bambino and and the Georgia Peach, we rolled past the first Great War. The Gas-house Gang got us through the depression, while the Splendid Splinter and Joltin’ Joe carried us past the Pearl Harbor attacks. The Duke, Mays and Mantle were the kings of New York in the ’50’s, while Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson carried us past Vietnam.
Even in the past 35 years, baseball still marks the road we’ve walked. George Brett’s pine-tar, the ball through Buckner’s legs, Atlanta’s divisions and pennant and Torre’s Yankees ended an era. One that is now marked with McGwire, Sosa and Bonds steroid era. Yet, it was President George W. Bush’s first pitch at Yankee Stadium, post 9-11, that let us know the American spirit would not waiver.
On a lighter side, baseball brings us great joy memorable moments. Bob Uecker is an icon that all of adore. Images of the past that still bring us a smile: Earl Weaver’s rants, Billy Marin’s firings, Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra’s quotes, all the way to President Barrack Obama’s mom jeans at first pitch. Baseball brings us joy.
Since that summer day, in 1846, we’ve passed our time in short sleeves under the sun. Playing the game throughout our youth, and chasing that youth through the game as we age. Thank the heavens above for our Aprils-to-Octobers, because they get us through those hard winters that follow. At the break of winter, rejoice and salute when they all report. It won’t be long until we finally hear those few beautiful words from old blue: ‘PLAY BALL!’
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