July 21, 2012

A Love Story

I cry every year.  Not out of pain or sorrow (although this year was a little different, due to the egregiously late, but ultimately satisfying, inclusion of Ron Santo)  but out of joy and appreciation for the sense of accomplishments. . . of others!  Thanks to the MLB Network, the Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies are carried live, annually.  I never miss them.  The part I like best?  When the attending members make their way individually to the stage while a short 'bio' of their career accomplishments on the field are rattled off by the master of ceremonies.  The heroes of my youth.  Hell, my heroes of today!  Sitting, alone, in my kitchen watching this spectacle I started to wonder why I was constantly fighting to choke back those stinging tears.  It's because I love these men.  I love what they did and how well they did it.  And I love the game that they played and the way that they played it.  I always have and I'm sure I always will.



Ah, the Baltimore Orioles.  One of the true loves of my life.  Who have broken my heart more than any combination of women I have ever known.  Actually the franchise existed in the 1890's, just slightly before my time.  A perennial championship team starring Wee Willie "Hit 'em where they ain't" Keeler.  But they were contracted out of existence after the 1899 season.  In 1901 they were reborn in the newly formed American League, only to be sacrificed in 1903 in favor of a New York franchise. . . which eventually became the Yankees.  Can you believe that crap?  The fucking Yankees???  From 1903 to 1953, they were a AAA team in the International League.  In 1914, owner Jack Dunn signed a young local kid to play for the Orioles.  The kids name?  George Herman "Babe" Ruth.  The Babe pitched for the Orioles for one year before being sold to the Boston Red Sox.  After the 1953 season, the St. Louis Browns moved to Maryland and became known as my beloved birds.  I was 4 at the time, so I don't remember the hoopla or the parade or any of that stuff, but I do remember the players.  Even the early ones.  Clint Courtney, Connie Johnson, Bobby Boyd, Jackie Brandt, Gus Triandos, Bob Turley, Hoyt Wihelm.  I could go on and on.  Then came 1957 and the call-up of a gangly third baseman/catcher named Brooks Robinson.  A redneck kid from Little Rock, Arkansas.  Or so I first thought.  An unassuming young man who kept his head down and just played.  And, boy, could he play.  If you never had the chance to see him on the field, you missed something special.  And by all accounts he is as exceptional a human being as he was a ball player.  He's 'my' Baltimore Oriole.  For some, it's Cal Jr.  Or Eddie Murray.  Or Jim 'Cakes' Palmer.  Or Brooks' brother, Frank.  Or Boog Powell.  But for me, it's Brooks.  A sportswriter once wrote, "In New York, they named a candy bar after Reggie Jackson.  In Baltimore, they name their kids after Brooks Robinson."  Enough said.
  (1957 Topps Rookie Card)



Cut to. . . Saturday morning, late March, 1960. (Actually, the year is irrelevant.)  It's the first warm non-school day of spring.  I get up, don jeans, a white tee shirt and sneakers.  Down to the kitchen for one or two hefty bowls of Cheerios, then grab my gear.  The gear consists of a beat up old baseball, a couple of dinged up wooden bats (they weren't using aluminum back then) and my prized possession, my baseball glove.  A Brooks Robinson model I got for Christmas which I would have gladly sold my sister, and the sisters of others, just to call it mine.  I take the ball out of the glove (where it had been cradled the entire winter), bury my face in the pocket of the mitt and inhale deeply through my nose.  It is a scent that stirs the soul.  Genuine leather plied with linseed oil can bring tears to my eyes and a smile to my lips, simultaneously.  Then it's outside, jump on my bike and pedal the mile and a half to the fields at Parkville Junior High.  And that's where I spent my day.  That Saturday and every Saturday until school let out for the summer.  And then it was every day.  And I do mean e-v-e-r-y day.  From 8 or 9 in the morning until dinner time, we played baseball.  Rain or shine.  Not enough people for teams?  Didn't matter.  We hit grounders, practiced pitching, shagged fly balls, played run-down, played Home Run Derby.  Or we just played catch.  For about10 hours a day.  E-v-e-r-y day. For y-e-a-r-s.

And dreamed.  Dreamed of hitting a game winning home run, of starting a picture perfect double play from deep in the hole at short, of sliding safely into home in a cloud of dust, of diving into the stands while snagging a foul pop.  Dreamed of my heroes.  As a pre-teen and teen, my life WAS baseball.  I collected cards, I scoured the box scores and memorized stats (while eating those Cheerios), I became a student of the game.  As much of a student as a 10 year old can.  I studied the retired players.  Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx, Rogers Hornsby, Frank "Home Run" Baker.  I memorized Casey at the Bat.  I had a tiny GE transistor radio that I kept under my pillow at night so that I could listen to Chuck Thompson call the Oriole games after being told by my folks that it was bedtime.  West coast trips were the best!  I could listen to baseball until after midnight.  How great was that!  I was listening the night that Cleveland slugger Rocky Colavito hit four home runs against the Orioles at Memorial Stadium.  Wikipedia tells me that was June 10, 1959.  It seems like yesterday.  Years later, at the ripe old age of 20, I remember getting into my car, a God-awful 1961 duck-shit-blue Chevy Bel Air, and hearing the final inning of Jim Palmer's no-hitter against the Oakland A's.  (He walked the bases loaded in the ninth!)  Seems like yesterday.  I remember being at Camden Yards on September 6, 1995, along with my two youngest sons, the night Cal broke Gehrig's consecutive games record.  Had tears in my eyes and a frog in my throat as Cal ran his victory lap.  Seems like yesterday.

And, today?  Not much different.  From April to September I either attend or watch on TV all 162 Orioles games.  And since the O's haven't been in the post-season since 1997, I'm a crabby, crusty old fuck from the end of September until. . . the day that pitchers and catchers report for spring training the following February.  I find that I don't dream of daring on-field exploits nearly as often, but they're still there.  Occasionally.  If they win, I have a pretty good day.  If they lose. . .  not so much.  We find baseball imbedded in our daily lives.  Game jargon has woven its way into the fabric of our society.  Denny's serves up a 'grand slam'.  Anything done well is a 'home run'.  You can buy 'double play' lottery tickets.   I do a crossword puzzle every day and rarely does a day go by that there isn't at least one reference to baseball in the given clues.

And movies.  Baseball movies are the best.  Even bad baseball movies are pretty good.  Here are some great lines from baseball movies that I wish I had the talent to write:

Field of Dreams  -  "A chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases - stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag."

A League of Their Own  -  Jimmy Dugan: Shit, Dottie, if you want to go back to Oregon and make a hundred babies, great, I'm in no position to tell anyone how to live. But sneaking out like this, quitting, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Baseball is what gets inside you. It's what lights you up, you can't deny that.
Dottie Hinson: It just got too hard.
Jimmy Dugan: It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great.

Major League - "Nice catch, Hayes.  Don't ever fucking do it again."

The Natural  -  Pop Fisher: You know, my mama wanted me to be a farmer.
Roy Hobbs: My dad wanted me to be a baseball player.
Pop Fisher: Well you're better than any player I ever had. And you're the best God damn hitter I ever saw. Suit up.

It Happens Every Spring  -  Manager Jimmy Dolan: Kelly's not indispensable!
Monk Lanigan: I know, but the team can't get along without him.

Bull Durham  -  "This son of a bitch is throwing a two-hit shutout. He's shaking me off. You believe that shit? Charlie, here comes the deuce. And when you speak of me, speak well."

Field of Dreams  -  "Ray, people will come Ray.". . . "And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."


For the record, I don't watch little league, college or minor league baseball.  To me, that would be like watching Roseanne Barr strip.  The game, at its highest level is a thing of beauty.  To see it done poorly is disheartening and unfulfilling.  It's the preciseness of the game and the level of talent it takes to play it well that I love.  Well played professional baseball is like a chess match played on a multi-acre board.  With 10 or more moving pieces.  One-run games are ridiculously exciting from the 8th inning, on.  Every pitch is crucial, every batted ball a potential disaster.  I will watch just about any MLB game that may happen to be on the tube.  Living in a city that has a major league team is a fringe benefit that gives me home town interest.  That being said, the Orioles won, today.  That makes five straight.  That makes it a good day.  Shit, damned near a good week!  Tonight, I can fall off to a restful sleep without a broken heart.  And the beat goes on. . .