Safe at Sappy

There has been much written about baseball. Words about the intricacies of the game. The history, the drama, the characters. The swelling wins and crushing defeats. The memories that get seared into your brain with the hot iron of past experiences loving and hugging this game of all games.

Much has been recorded. Much has been talked about and pondered, argued and discussed. Fists have been thrown and hands have been held. Drinks have been tossed into the air and smashed against a wall. A beer soaked breath coming at your face as a friend comes in for a quick peck on the cheek after your team just got sent to the World Series, on the wings of some “did it really happen?!” heroic feat.

Soft, wet, late afternoon summer grass under your feet in the backyard with a fast-warming, sweaty beer in your lap and the game on the radio – simple, the way it’s been heard for 80, 90 years. No flashy graphics or replays, no cuts to exclusive interviews between pitches to keep the attention-deficit-addled viewer’s brain occupied.

Just the simple, steady voice of a professional, letting you know what is happening. Balls. Strikes. Base hits. Foul balls. Double play. Hit and run! This game is brought to you by’s. There’s a Boy Scout troop here from Ishpeming. Happy Birthday to So and So, in Section This or That. She’s from Flint. Kicks and deals.

The it could be’s. The it might be’s. The it is’s.

Gone.

These, and so many more, the announcer giving you the script over the airwaves and you are allowed to construct the play, make the movie, in your mind. How it looks, the players’ expressions, the glint of stadium lights on a plastic helmet. The smell of dogs and brats and kraut, smoking in the concourses, floating back memories that were just yesterdays, when it was just yesterday.  

Crack and chatters. Cracks and chatters. The thwack of a fastball landing in a glove of thick, stitched leather. I don’t know if a more beautiful sound exists in sports.

So today, on the eve of the playoff series between the Tigers and Yankees, I just want to say that the reason I love baseball the way I do is not because I am of the opinion that it is simply the most perfect and beautiful game ever devised – it’s because the same is the most sincere and organic game ever created.

And it’s that way because, I think, of the way we experience the game. We experience it in often visceral and heart-wrenching ways. On the edge of our seats ways. Looking through the space between our fingers, which are covering our face ways.

Baseball sucks you in because it’s hard to play well. It draws you in because you can see the faces of those you cheer for or against. You can tell how they’re feeling. You can feel the game and understand it, I think, because we also fail more than we succeed. But we keep stepping up to the plate.

You can’t see that emotion through football helmet.

Football, come to think of it, is just some vestigial tail leftover thing from the Roman Empire in my book. Watching it is really no different than taking your seat with the other plebes in the Coliseum to witness some poor fool get his intestines thrown about by some rabid wild animal that’s been beaten mean for three days.

Football appeals to our inner Neanderthal. It’s a telegraph cable back to the days when we would crush a skull with the nearest “Big Thing” just because. It riles people to tap into that undercurrent of ultra-violence that still seeps between our cells.

It is an uncivilized, undignified game.

Baseball is a game of class and dignity.

It is a gentleman’s game.

It is a game handed down through the generations like a super-special family heirloom, meant to be kept close and respected.

It is a game of unrivaled distinction, where the current players play against not only their opponents on the field, but the ghosts of those long past. Baseball respects its elders like no other sport.

But even more than all this, it’s just a whole lot of fun. Fun like crazy kids in the backyard fun. Fun like your ready to cry and explode with delight and laughter fun. Fun like hugging an old friend not seen for ages fun.

Just fun.

Go Tigers.