Baseball and the Sound of Summer

It’s time to put aside those winter doldrums and open the door for spring. Sunshine, warm air, green grass, flowers and baseball, let’s go! 

Last week pitchers, catchers, position players, rookies and those showcasing their skill for later in the season reported to their respective spring training facilities in sunny Florida and Arizona.

Do you know what this means?

Major League Baseball's opening day is right around the corner. 

What baseball means to me:

Baseball coincides with summer and school being out of session for a couple of months. All summer long, my friends and I would meet at the little league field to shag fly balls, practice pitching, double plays and have pick-up games. We had our own version of the 1993 movie classic, The Sandlot, except 25 years earlier and without, The Beast.

Baseball is a long standing American tradition, just like backyard BBQ’s, complete with hot dogs, hamburgers, baked beans, potato salad, watermelon and fireworks on the 4th of July.

Baseball was about collecting and trading baseball cards. When I was a kid, I’d ask Mom for a nickel to buy a pack of cards. I always had hopes of getting my favorite player, or looking for last years MVP or Cy Young award winner. If I got lucky, I’d get the Rookie of the Year. If I didn’t get a great card in the pack, at least I got that delicious stick of pink bubble gum. 

Baseball was the voice of Mel Allen and later, Phil Rizzuto from the transistor hidden under the pillow for a game going on past my bedtime.

Baseball was attaching the baseball card of your most hated player with a clothespin to the frame of your bicycle to hear it go, tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat on its spokes. The faster one peddled, the louder and quicker those tat-tat-tat’s would go.

Baseball intrigued me with the mathematics of the game. Decimal points, percentages and the statistics printed daily in the Newark Star Ledger would fascinate me. I’d have to wait till my father got home from work to hand me the newspaper. I’d lie on the living room floor to read the sports section and check out all the box scores and players batting averages.

Baseball was a mechanism to unite families and creates conversations about statistics, box scores, favorite teams, players and standings. It is the only hug between father and son during his teenage years because their team just clinched the pennant. When the topic came up about going to Yankee Stadium to see a game, fuggedaboutit! (contraction of forget about it, in favor of)

Baseball encourages hard work, practice and perseverance. From throwing a ball through a tire in the backyard or playing catch with your buddies; sore arms, skinned elbows and knees; playing until the sun goes down, head home, sweaty and dirty for dinner after hours on the ball field with friends. It is a conversation with those friends 50 years later at a high school reunion, recalling the loss in the state finals. 

But baseball took on a whole new perspective to me when I started playing catch with my boys in the backyard.  Seeing the smiles and excitement plastered on their faces when they would catch the ball, one-two-three or four times in a row. Teaching them properly to step and throw a baseball. Showing them how to correctly hold the bat and where they should place their feet while in a batting stance.

I was an involved baseball parent and coach, starting with T-Ball, to Jr. Little League through to Little League. Driving my older son, Mark (who ate and slept baseball) and his friends throughout the tri-state area for their summer traveling all-stars team tournaments. 

For me it was a sad day watching Mark play his final varsity high school game before hanging up his cleats. Those cleats have hung in my garage on the same peg for the past twenty-three years. Every summer we’ll pull them down, grab a beer and reminisce of the spring and summer days when he played ball. 

Yeah, that’s baseball to me. I’d do it all over again.