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| There's no lonelier place than an off-season ballfield |
YET I HAVE to confess to feeling a twinge of sadness at that sight.
Not
because I cared about the Cubs or had a strong rooting interest in either team
that was playing. But because I enjoy baseball.
And
the final out of the final game of the World Series each year always brings out
a feeling in me that the game is gone; for the time being.
Perhaps
it’s because professional baseball teams play nearly every day during the
season that they become truly wrapped up in the routines of our lives; in a way
that the Chicago Bears with their once-a-week loss (or so it seems) just can’t.
THERE
IS A beauty to the form of the ballgame as the pitcher vs. hitter challenge
takes place; trying to see if one can out-think the other to their success.
With other ballplayers hopping into action in those spare moments when contact
is made with the ball.
Producing
those moments that inspire newspaper photographers into action – freezing forever
those bits of action for us to study. The diving catch. The bobbled ball. That
moment of agony on an outfielder’s face as he realizes the fly ball is headed
over the fence – and there’s not a thing he can do to stop it!
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| Even non-North Side felt something for Cubs |
These
moments that can make watching a ballgame a real treasure. Totally lost on
those kinds of people who think anything other than a 15-9 ballgame is boring –
although I actually think those high-scoring slugfests are dull because it
usually means the pitching stinks, errors are being made in the field and everything
is out-of-whack.
And now, it’s over. Another season is in the record books. Something that can be studied by those inclined to do so, while many of us will remember the individual moments of the games we actually saw. We’ll likely exaggerate their significance.
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| Line shot will never depart my mind |
JUST
AS I will forever recall a line drive double that Reggie Jackson hit off the
right field wall at Comiskey Park in a 1979 ballgame – it struck me as being
the hardest-hit ball I ever saw.
On
the scorecard, it looks like a simple “2B-9” hit off pitcher Ken Kravec. But I
remember it as a sizzling shot that never went more than 15 or so feet in the
air – and would have been a home run if it had cleared the fence a foot higher instead of smashing into the wall.
It’s
these little moments that stick in my mind about baseball. The sight of
ballplayers congregated on the pitcher’s mound deep in discussion about the
game (and wondering if they’re really checking out the blonde who got herself a
box seat right behind the dugout).
THE
MANAGER CHARGING out of the dugout to argue with an umpire’s call – and knowing
that the choice words he’d like to use to describe the ump’s mother will get
him ejected!
Watching
the coaches relay all those signals to the batter – and wondering how screwed
up things will get if the coach inadvertently scratches his earlobe at the
wrong moment?
I’d
be willing to bet that similar thoughts are running through the minds of
baseball fans everywhere – although for those who are Cubs-obsessed, they were
able to delay them a bit, what with the parade that stretched from Wrigley Field
through downtown on Friday.
Particularly
if you’re inclined to believe Gov. Bruce Rauner, who in issuing the
proclamation declaring Friday in Illinois to be World Champion Chicago Cubs Day
said, “the Cubs winning the World Series is bigger than baseball.”
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| Baseball will be back come April |
Unless
you’re inclined to check out the stats in the assorted Latin American winter
leagues (where, by the way, the late White Sox star Minnie Miñoso’s old Jalisco
Charros team – he both played for, and managed, them – beat the Hermosillo
Orange Growers 11-8 Thursday night), you’ll have to endure some five months of
inactivity before we again see meaningful games being played.
For
some of us, an empty ballpark is an even sadder sight than one when our
favorite ball club loses.
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