The All-American Pastime

Over the last couple years I’ve really gotten into baseball. Not sure how…probably had something to do with Detroit doing so well all of a sudden…or maybe it was just my childhood coming back to tickle me, as I loved playing as a lad, and The Sandlot has always been my favorite movie of all time (next to Aladdin, of course). As a general rule I think sports are stupid, almost as stupid as sports fans. Five years ago, if I had to compile a list of sports from uninteresting to even more uninteresting, I’d start with football as the most tolerable; then hockey, then the olympic games (people who get really into the olympics are just the worst types of people, I’m sorry to say), then basketball I guess, then tennis, golf, and finally baseball hanging out down there at dead last.

But…few things stay the same, and over the course of a couple years and a few dozen watched games, baseball has moved up to the only sport that interests me even in the slightest…not like any of the other sports really interested me much to begin with, but occasionally I’d get into a hockey game or a football game– no more. It’s all baseball, all day…and this summer I took it a step farther and got myself geared up with a bat (3 dollars), two gloves (left handed glove, 15 dollars, fuckgoddamnit— right handed glove, 18 dollars), and a ball (one dollar). The leftie was a nice glove, but an accident– and the rightie, while still fairly cheap, looked like it had been sitting out in the sun since 1945– a bleached white, rock hard leather thing, but one that worked just fine. I assembled all these pieces over the weekend and talked my brother into heading down to the local baseball diamond, after hours of course, to crank out a few balls. We took turns standing in the outfield and batting, alternating between trying to catch and trying to hit, and it was without a doubt the most fun I have had in years. The simple act of playing catch with baseball gloves alone is something of a thrill that I highly recommend if you’ve never tried it…though I can’t describe what makes it so addicting. Something about the sound and feel the ball makes when it smacks into your glove…it’s a similar thrill to the sound and feel a bat makes when it connects with it, just right.

My brother had to run and get his sunglasses at some point, leaving me standing there with the ball and my glove waiting on him a while, so I took to tossing the ball straight up into the air as far as I could– playing a little catch with myself to bide the time– and for a moment time just stopped. I had my head tilted all the way back, nothing in front of me but that blinding bright summer blue, with those perfect wads of pure white cloud tossed in there. The ball hovered wayyyy up high, a spinning patchwork orb, and at the bottom of the frame young bright green leaves rippled in the breeze. The colors– so vivid– the scents, the anticipation, the warmth, the breeze, the fresh air. the exercise…it was a moment, seared in time, in which I was quite grateful to be alive.