We love baseball and it loves us back.

[Bill Cady]

BASEBALL

The great American pastime. Part of the quartet including Mom, Chevrolet and apple pie. It’s a sport I’ve always loved, but more as a spectator than a player. My normal playing spot was right field, where I was about a C+. My talent in the batting cage was in the B area, maybe a B+ at times, since I could hit a long ball on occasion.

Baseball can be as boring as watching paint dry for the people who don’t understand how it’s played. Those who think the only good moments are the homers that end up a dozen rows into the bleachers should confine their interest to the highlight reels. That ain’t baseball.

The best games you’ll ever see are one-run games. 1-0 or 3-2, like that. Pitching duels with the highlight play a shortstop who dives to his right and catches a line drive as he hits the dirt and slides, then from a sitting position fires a screaming strike back to second and catches the guy heading for third off guard. To really make that play one for the annals of the game, the second baseman would then whirl after his foot touches the bag and blaze a speedball back to first, nailing that runner in a triple play.

Perhaps it’s a pitcher’s duel where both hurlers are so hot that day you could bake a potato by wrapping it in tin foil and placing it next to the mound for three innings. Where each pitch hits the catcher’s mitt with a pop so loud the fans can hear it in the cheap seats, 12^th row in center field. Where the batters called out on a third strike walk back to the dugout muttering things that’d send their moms running for a bar of soap to wash a mouth out. A game when one of the highlight reels is a center fielder making the leap of his lifetime to snag a definite home run as it flies at high speed toward a fan in the third row. He falls to the grass, rolls and springs to his feet, glove held high, the ball nestled inside it.

Being homeless leaves you feeling like the star batter of a team being made the victim of a no hitter and the other team has one run. You’re oh-for-two at the plate today, now in the ninth inning with one out, two strikes against you, and the count is zero balls. You just heard the sizzling whiz of a fastball blazing past you, colliding with the catcher’s mitt like a rifle shot as the ump hollers, “Steeee-rike three! Yer out!”

And you don’t care.

Emotionally, you get placed on the DL, (disabled list). The manager tells the reporters your condition is listed as “day to day”. And you don’t care.

Tired. That’s the feeling it leaves in a man. Bone tired. Running on fumes. The tank is almost empty and there’s no way for you to fuel up again. It’s not on the near horizon. So, you wait. Hope whatever comes next will be a positive. Something to pick up the pace. Put you back in the game. There’s a skinny chance a teammate might do something with that last at-bat, but it’s a very slim likelihood. A long-shot. If it happens, it happens. The game will go on. Still, if that teammate doesn’t come through for you, since you’ve given your very best and it wasn’t enough, it could mean game over.

And you don’t care.

I’m just sayin’.

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