season ending reflections

Well, another season has come and gone. The greatest game in the world has once again crowned a champion and a city waiting decades for a championship gets to savor the taste of victory. Congrats.

The other day I saw a commercial advertising hi-def television and it used baseball as its marketing ploy. The man buys an HDTV and all of a sudden he experiences baseball in all new ways...his nostrils are singed and he is blown away by the blistering baseball action he now experiences due to the wonders of modern technology.

I don't know about you, but I have never experienced baseball in this way. I don't know of anyone who ever has. It is not that baseball is not exciting. It certainly has its moments that keep you on the edge of your seat. But, in the main, that isn't what baseball is about. This game is not about the fast-paced, it is about the methodical. It isn't about packing every second with movement, it is about creating space for reflection and conversation. Baseball is a game devoted to intricacy, not smashmouth action. To suggest that a TV can help you capture this kind of action is to suggest you can catch something that isn't there in the first place.

You cannot love baseball for the same reasons you love football. If you try to love baseball for the action, you will have little to love. Baseball is about stories. Baseball is about heros and believing in something bigger than yourself. Devotion to baseball teams is arguably unrivaled in American sport today. The traditions of baseball is where fans find their love of this game. Players, coaches, writers, and fans all find their place in the larger story of what this sport means to the history of our culture in America.

Baseball provides a common thread through your life. When I tune a radio to a baseball game, I remember falling asleep to Jack Buck or Mike Shannon on hot summer nights when I was a kid. Trying so hard to stay awake just to picture the game happening right before me. Loving baseball today connects me to my past, in a way, baseball provides the setting for my story.

How many of my memories are tied to baseball? How often has a silly game brought me incredible joy or tears? Why do I care so much about a game, or a team? Something inside me craves the feeling of belonging to something...even if I'm disappointed, it's safe because they come back next year. Until then...