I have an annual fling with football, and I respect it, as a sport. But every year at this time my heart returns to my first, true love: baseball.Today’s kids seem to all grow up playing soccer, scurrying around in some inchoate effort to kick a speckled ball into a net, their arms and hands all but useless. I was lucky enough to come along when baseball ruled, learning from older neighborhood mentors the simple but eternal truths: throw, catch, hit.
And run, when appropriate.
If we didn’t have enough players for a game, we’d play flies and grounders, or relay. If there were only two of us, pitcher and catcher, swapping roles as soon as one struck out three or walked four.
If there was only one, throw the ball straight up, and catch it when it comes down. A lesson in physics and coordination. (I once broke the windshield on my parents’ car.)
The first goal was to demonstrate sufficient skill at tryouts to be drafted by a Little League team. To win a uniform: team name across the chest, pants tucked at the knees to show off those stripped leggings, cap with bill carefully rounded, black canvas shoes with rubber cleats.
I wanted it all.
It took two years in the minors - wearing T-shirts for Staples Athletics and Nelson Pontiac Dodgers - before I got a uniform of my own and a place on Papermakers Local 203. From that to Standard Oil to Burnham’s Drugs, to steel cleats and stealing bases, I was a serviceable infielder, a decent hitter and, for a couple of years, a wildly erratic pitcher.
There was nothing, from sweaty practice sessions to snowball treats after the games, that wasn’t fun. Even a bad day on the baseball field beat a good day doing something else.
I know the detractors’ arguments: baseball is too slow, too boring, too arcane. This, I figure, comes from people who never played it, or never played it well enough to appreciate it. (The infield fly rule isn’t really that difficult.)
My own playing days are decades behind me, but I still love everything about baseball, especially at the ballpark: the pre-game warmups and stretches, infield and batting practice, the national anthem, the smells and tastes, the crowd’s crescendo as a fly ball climbs, climbs, climbs into a home run.
O.K., I’m not too crazy about the ticket prices for a Yankees game. But as any guy who’s ever bought diamonds knows, true love can be expensive.
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