Baseball and Life: Pop Ups and Parallels

'Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal..."
~ George F. Will

Every February, near the end of that dreary month, a slow moving cadre of professional pitchers start showing up ahead of their teamates at grapefruit and cactus league stadiums around the southern United States for the beginning of a tradition that now spans three centuries. Baseball, an artful sport perfected in North America and arguably created by either an American or Canadian, descends on our national conscience every spring like the coming blooms and the warm air from the south. Unlike other sports, baseball still thoroughly exudes a tangible nostalgia and hasn't changed much over the past three centuries it has spanned. Baseball, in all its glory and fallibility, so closely resembles life if we just look and listen close enough, and can see ourselves in every pitch and every swing. Baseball imitating life, and because of its longevity, life imitating baseball...    

America's dark past and race was always reflected in baseball. With the emergence of the "Negro Leagues" running parallel to the white major leagues baseball, in a fit of breathtaking and heart wrenching conformity, represented America's painful reality. In a symbol of hope and the enduring spirit of America on April 15th 1947, just under two years after a devastating war, Jackie Robinson started at second base for the Brooklyn Dodgers and ended the color barrier in baseball, and in some ways, through the essence of this great country. In front of 26,623 spectators, including more than 14,000 black patrons at Ebetts Field, Robinson showed the world that the American experience was changing and baseball was the messenger...

Major league sports, and baseball in particular, represents a great opportunity to better ourselves and to be a part of something larger than ourselves. Think of the first time you went to a game, any game, and felt the energy of the players and the awesome waves of energy from the fans. Walking into a baseball park is like walking back into history. As you walk through the tunnels to the seats that unmistakable smell of the park, hot dogs, stale beer, the sound of wood bats hitting the balls and the yells of players as they extend themselves in breathtaking defiance of Newton's gravity...the ball park is a special place in our collective conscience...

No other sport nods to the past and still wears uniforms largely styled in the late 19th century.  Baseball pays such a tremendous homage to stats of every imaginable kind, shows how the old stars fit in with the new and constantly reminds us of the immovable nature of human striving and how a game intended on being innocent shows us our better angels despite the occasional drama. It is said the best societies are the ones who constantly look back to see where they've been. Baseball, as a matter of tradition, constantly looks back to see what happened, then joyfully looks ahead like a child watching his/her first game.

Most people generally feel that life is not fair to all of us. We all know of those who don't seem to have the ability of having good luck and those of bad luck. Baseball, in all its grandeur, offers all who dare an equal shot at winning, or as life, in having good luck. For nine innings both teams send three batters to the plate and the number of pitches is a draw to both. With virtually no way of delaying a game save for the odd manager jogging to the mound the game is concentric and balanced like no other. Luck it seems, doesn't necessarily play a larger role as it does in life, of course, unless there's a streak.   

When Robert Redford's Roy Hobbs, in the classic baseball movie The Natural, breaks his childhood bat "Wonder Boy" during a foul hit it seems like the tides of luck will finally envelop the Knights and lead to defeat. Darker battles are at play as in life and Hobbs must take a stand and push the sun back into the sky. The pudgy loveable batboy walks up and ask Hobbs what to do as they stare at the broken bat. Hobbs tells the boy to go get him a good bat. The boy gets a bat he made with Hobbs call the 'Savoy' and gently hands it to him. After much posturing as the pitcher and catcher exchange calls and Hobbs plants himself in the box. All at once a titanic pitch finally launches to Hobbs only to be pounded into the lights of the stadium lifting the Knights to a stunning victory against the visiting team and other shadowing shenanigans that always seem to circle pro baseball.    

There are countless exchanges and transactions on the field as there are in life and in full view of the world. The rhythm of the game, as in life, is plodding and sure. The game marches on as does life and we look and listen and participate safe in the knowledge we will win some days and lose some days.   We will have streaks and we will have slumps but we must always stand up and get back in the stadium of life and take part.

So in early April... the Boys of Summer will jog onto baseball fields again. The weight of three centuries of play on their shoulders and the hopes and dreams of children, old and young, hanging in the balance. A game of balance, of math, of passion and skill kicks off for one more glorious year. Its a game of inches (centimetres for us Canadians), and a game of miles and miles of open road.

So put your worries aside, your troubles, and your challenges, for just a few moments and watch the best game in the world, become a kid again and watch some of the finest athletes in the world show us life itself and in fact ourselves, as they race around the diamonds. Lets play ball....