Baseball

            

When I was a young boy growing up spring always brought me a promise of school out and another carefree summer. But it also brought one other thing almost as precious, and that was baseball. I was addicted to the game, not only playing it, but watching my heroes like Duke Snider from the Dodgers, Henry Aaron from the Braves and Willie Mays from the Giants. Everywhere I went my baseball glove would be on my belt or the handlebars of my bike. I had shoe boxes full of baseball cards and could recite statistics for most of the players. I would hover in my bedroom at night when I was supposed to be sleeping, my little electric radio tuned to St Louis, Missouri. It was the only station I could pick up carrying a baseball game.  I would listen to Harry Caray in that signature voice of his say, “Now batting number six, Stan the Man Musial.” These players were to me what every red blooded American boy wanted to grow up and be. Then something happened and it’s never been the same since.

Greedy owners who cared little about the devoted fans they had accumulated over the years, took their teams to the most lucrative markets they could find. The Dodgers broke a million of those bums’ hearts and left tiny Ebbets Field for glamorous Los Angeles. The Duke would never again hit one out over Bedford Avenue. Willie lost that big center field in the Polo Grounds where he roamed and made all of those dazzling catches, to go to the city by the bay, and Hammering Hank who seemed to just glide around the bases, left them crying in their beer in County Stadium in Milwaukee. There would be teams moving every year after that and then the players took a page out of the owner’s playbook and they found themselves an agent and free agency themselves.

I cried the day I saw Harmon Killebrew in a Kansan City Uniform. He was to the Twins what all of those other greats were to their respected teams where they had played their hearts and guts out. I never forgave the twins for that. He was one of them that didn’t ask to leave. Now there is no more allegiance by the owners or the players to the fans. It’s all about the money. Who cares about the kids that worshiped you? The ones who sat wide- eyed in the bleachers just to get within fifty feet of their heroes, and prayed with all of their hearts for a home run ball or dangled their arms over the fence, begging to touch fingers with them.

I had a friend who lost his dog and he told me he would never get another. It was just too hard to lose them he reasoned. Well that’s the way I feel about baseball and the players now. Don’t get too attached to them because as soon as some wealthy owner opens his wallet they will be gone, and if you don’t build the team a new ball park every twenty years they will leave too. Maybe it’s time to go fishing. I’m not sure but I don’t think anyone can move the lake.