Before it All

You get there early, before anyone else.  You walk out on the field to get the feel of the dirt, to see if the chalk lines are perfectly white rows of powder.  You see if the bases are square, the dugouts cleaned.  To make sure that home plate is right there dusted off and ready to go.  The grass is green and no holes.  Your bag is hung, the bats out, your glove on the bench, and sunflower seeds stocked.  People start to arrive.  The rest of the team is there and you laugh and let loose ready to have fun and kick butt.  You warm up with you usual partner, the one that knows you so well that you both think the same thing when you stop throwing so your arm doesn't die.  You take a few swings, hear that crack, and look over to watch your opponents watch the ball as it soars.  You go back to the dugout, and your coach gives you the plan. 
PLAY BALL

One Step Closer

The days are already beginning to get a little warmer, and my heartbeat quicker.  My lifeline will soon pick up again.  Summer is one step closer.  I dream of those miserably hot days spent in the dirt and the grass and the chalk on the field.  The red stains on all my socks and the scars covering arms and legs.  The way my hair gets bleach blond from staying in the sun so long.  The golden bronze of my skin and the t-shirt tan lines.  Every day is one step closer to those days. 

The Wait

Patience is said to be virtue, but whoever said that must not get very excited at all.  There are still approximately 125 days until summer vacation, yet I cannot wait for the season to begin.  Life begins when the season starts, and I am running out of patience! I am dying to get back on that field and do what I do best.  I'm ready to feel the scorching hot sun on the bright, dry, long days, turn into the sweet summer nights with the cool, lazy moon and an explosion of stars scattered in the sky.  I want to smell that leather glove and hear the solid crack of the bat.  Taste the sunflower seeds and feel the glory when I knock that ball over heads to the green.  Winter isn't the hard part.  It's not the snow or the cold, it's the wait - knowing that the power and beauty all lies ahead.

A Ballad of Baseball Burdens

By Franklin Pierce Adams 1881–1960

 

The burden of hard hitting. Slug away

Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb.

Else fandom shouteth: “Who said you could play?

Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!”

Swat, hit, connect, line out, get on the job.

Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom’s ire

Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob—

This is the end of every fan’s desire.

The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.

Or in or out, or haply up or down,

To puzzle him that standeth by the plate,

To lessen, so to speak, his bat-renoun:

Like Christy Mathewson or Miner Brown,

So pitch that every man can but admire

And offer you the freedom of the town—

This is the end of every fan’s desire.

The burden of loud cheering. O the sounds!

The tumult and the shouting from the throats

Of forty thousand at the Polo Grounds

Sitting, ay, standing sans their hats and coats.

A mighty cheer that possibly denotes

That Cub or Pirate fat is in the fire;

Or, as H. James would say, We’ve got their goats—

This is the end of every fan’s desire.

The burden of a pennant. O the hope,

The tenuous hope, the hope that’s half a fear,

The lengthy season and the boundless dope,

And the bromidic; “Wait until next year.”

O dread disgrace of trailing in the rear,

O Piece of Bunting, flying high and higher

That next October it shall flutter here:

This is the end of every fan’s desire.

ENVOY

Ah, Fans, let not the Quarry but the Chase

Be that to which most fondly we aspire!

For us not Stake, but Game; not Goal, but Race—

THIS is the end of every fan’s desire.

Pure Sound

Last night, I watched the movie "Trouble With the Curve".  It's about baseball, and a Braves recruiter and his daughter that know more about the game than any other character.  They went to recruit a big shot player, along with many other MLB teams.  Everyone wanted him, but when it came time for the draft, the Braves' recruiter didn't want him.  He pulled his hands and couldn't hit a curveball.  When his bat met the baseball, it didn't make that pure sound that meant it was a good, solid hit.  There are so many other details about the movie and I could tell the whole story but it wouldn't be the same.  Sports really can teach you lessons, and baseball/softball is/are probably two of the biggest teachers.  It's individual and team all in itself.  The message that this movie put out there was that sometimes the biggest choices come from the tiniest details.  You can't go completely based on what you see.  You have to have heard that pure sound.