Tom On Baseball

 It's Opening Day of the 2023 Major League Baseball season, and fans everywhere rejoice at the arrival of the Boys Of Summer, as the late Roger Kahn once referred to the old Brooklyn Dodgers. Opening Day marks the beginning of a journey of seven months during which the various teams of young men vie for athletic supremacy. Today every team is tied with 0 wins and 0 losses. As the season progresses, some teams will be revealed as being dazzlingly  good and others  will stand out for their sheer ineptitude. But some teams will surprise and give their fans an unexpected and exhilarating ride, but in the end the usual suspects will almost always  prevail  

Baseball has a broad appeal because most boys and many girls played The Summer Game as kids. We played casual games that were governed by ad hoc rules that reflected the reality of more or less the regulation number of participants, quirky playing fields, and non regulation balls Sometimes even the occasional dog would try to participate.  But the games that we played in the Summer heat, however much they had a special uniqueness,  were undeniably baseball. As fans we root for the laundry. The same player that we loved last season becomes a reviled enemy this year, simply because they were traded to another team. When we played those sandlot games each summer we imagined ourselves wearing the laundry of our hometown heroes. That's why when a young kid makes the Show with a team that he grew up rooting for, it's something magical. In 1964 a young kid from St.Mary's high school in Lynn made his debut with the Sox and hit a home run in his first major league at bat .He seemed destined for the Hall of Fame but a Jack Hamilton fastball broke his face derailed his career The baseball gods are like the fates of Greek mythology in that they can end a career at their whim.

Before I move on I want to refer you to the memorable meditation on baseball as delivered by James Earl Jones in the 1989 film 'Field of Dreams':

"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and what could be again."

Play Ball!