The great American pastime.
I love baseball.
As a kid, I didn't play sports. My folks never watched sports on television (except for tennis). We weren't fans. We didn't root for the home team or wear our favorite team's jerseys. So most of the time, I don't get sports.
But baseball, I get.
Thanks to the patient tutelage of my husband, I have learned to understand and, yes, even appreciate sports like football, golf and soccer. But I could take 'em or leave 'em (sorry, all you nutty Arsenal and Real Madrid fans out there). But baseball, I love.
I blame Field of Dreams and James Earl Jones for starting this love affair. When Jones' character in the movie (Terrance Mann) tells Ray, "People will come," I get all teary-eyed.
It brings me back to sitting in the stands with my husband, and later my children, watching the home team (in my case, the Houston Astros ... remember the Killer Bees, Houston?). Thirty-five thousand people in one stadium cheering for one team, our home team. Opening each game with the national anthem, and taking a break at the seventh-inning stretch to sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and "Deep in the Heart of Texas" (that last one is a Texas thang).
I love that moment when the relief pitcher takes the field and you know he is going to throw six perfect strikes and seal our team's victory. I love the sleepy innings when nothing happens and you can sip your beer and people watch, and those exciting innings when runner after runner crosses home plate and you jump up and spill your beer and high-five your neighbors.
Loving baseball is about loving America. We have our faults, yes, as every other nation knows (and is quick to point out): We are materialistic and have short attention spans; we can be shallow, tacky, bullying; we lack a sense of style; we're fat. We are prudes. (Don't shoot the messenger! I'm just telling you what I hear!)
At a bar last week, I overheard a fellow American defend himself as not "too" American. "I've lived abroad for a long time," he said. I jumped him for that: "You're apologizing for being American? You should be proud!" He was soooo busted. But honestly, I understand. As Americans living abroad, we get put down a lot. You can start to feel like a dog that's been kicked too many times... like you need to apologize for who you are.
The antidote for that kicked-too-many-times feeling is baseball: It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.
In the fall, the kids plays soccer on Saturday mornings. I dutifully sit in the stands and watch the kids run back and forth across the field, trying to feel enthusiastic. In the spring, the kids play baseball. It's coach's pitch, but the rest is real baseball. I can't help myself from cheering—spontaneously yelping and hooting and shouting for all the great plays and hits and catches. The parents from India, UK, South Africa, Israel and Lebanon just turn and stare at me with a confused look in their eyes. "What is she so excited about? I don't even get this game. When's soccer season start again?"
Baseball is America's game. It's been America's pastime since the 1860s. Even our great American poets write about baseball:
Play ball!
As a kid, I didn't play sports. My folks never watched sports on television (except for tennis). We weren't fans. We didn't root for the home team or wear our favorite team's jerseys. So most of the time, I don't get sports.
But baseball, I get.
Thanks to the patient tutelage of my husband, I have learned to understand and, yes, even appreciate sports like football, golf and soccer. But I could take 'em or leave 'em (sorry, all you nutty Arsenal and Real Madrid fans out there). But baseball, I love.
I blame Field of Dreams and James Earl Jones for starting this love affair. When Jones' character in the movie (Terrance Mann) tells Ray, "People will come," I get all teary-eyed.
"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."This speech taps into my inner-American-ness. Because baseball represents the things that I love about America: unity, loyalty, community, the simple things in life, the pride we feel for our home team, hot dogs and cracker jacks, family, celebrating achievement, our history...
I love that moment when the relief pitcher takes the field and you know he is going to throw six perfect strikes and seal our team's victory. I love the sleepy innings when nothing happens and you can sip your beer and people watch, and those exciting innings when runner after runner crosses home plate and you jump up and spill your beer and high-five your neighbors.
Loving baseball is about loving America. We have our faults, yes, as every other nation knows (and is quick to point out): We are materialistic and have short attention spans; we can be shallow, tacky, bullying; we lack a sense of style; we're fat. We are prudes. (Don't shoot the messenger! I'm just telling you what I hear!)
At a bar last week, I overheard a fellow American defend himself as not "too" American. "I've lived abroad for a long time," he said. I jumped him for that: "You're apologizing for being American? You should be proud!" He was soooo busted. But honestly, I understand. As Americans living abroad, we get put down a lot. You can start to feel like a dog that's been kicked too many times... like you need to apologize for who you are.
The antidote for that kicked-too-many-times feeling is baseball: It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.
In the fall, the kids plays soccer on Saturday mornings. I dutifully sit in the stands and watch the kids run back and forth across the field, trying to feel enthusiastic. In the spring, the kids play baseball. It's coach's pitch, but the rest is real baseball. I can't help myself from cheering—spontaneously yelping and hooting and shouting for all the great plays and hits and catches. The parents from India, UK, South Africa, Israel and Lebanon just turn and stare at me with a confused look in their eyes. "What is she so excited about? I don't even get this game. When's soccer season start again?"
Baseball is America's game. It's been America's pastime since the 1860s. Even our great American poets write about baseball:
"I see great things in baseball. It's our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us."
"Walt Whitman said that," says Annie in Bull Durham (another great baseball movie). "You could look it up."
Comments
Post a Comment