Baseball I Love You

Baseball, I love you.

You are springtime, with the excitement of opening day and warm sunshine and sweet green grass. You are summer, with long shadows over the hot field and fireworks and hotdogs and sweat. You are fall, with the chase for October and cool nights and extra innings under the brilliant lights.

You are the swing of the bat illuminated by ten-thousand anticipatory camera flashes.

You are the rare delight of stealing home under the helpless gaze of a stunned pitcher.

You are the smug satisfaction of the catcher throwing behind the batter to pick off the runner at first base.

You are the acrobatic and unapologetic leap of the left-fielder, laid out and stretching the impossible distance to snag the pop fly.

You are the double play turned by the infielder from his knees, the line drive miraculously caught by the pitcher as much in self-defense as on-purpose, the slide into second, the fielder's choice, the long throw home, the wicked curve.

I hear you, baseball, like the rumbling of applause that grows from the last few measures of the national anthem, like the wheezing strains of the organ, like the crackle of AM radio, like the solid thwack of a fastball entering the catcher's mitt, like the old guy yelling "ice cold beer."

We give you our Saturday afternoons, our weeknights, our rally caps, our foam fingers, our scorecards, the shouts and cheers for our beloved teammates, the raucous boos for our opponents and moderately more polite ones for defected former favorites.

You give us sunburnt knees and close calls with foul tips, rookies with heart and veterans with grit, exhilirating walk-off homeruns and heartbreaking September losses. You call us to our feet in hushed hopes for will-they-or-won't-they, get up get up get up long drifters back to the wall, in joined outrage for are-you-blind-you-crazy-ump calls at the plate, in deafening cheers for the comeback win.

You are the Green Monster, the hill at Minute Maid, the ivy at Wrigley, the thin air at Mile High, the nosebleed seats in every third and fourth tier, the hot metal of the bleacher seats, standing room only, and you are every old stadium breathing with history and every new stadium with all its bells and whistles.

You are Cubs versus Cardinals and Sox versus Yanks. You are subway series and crosstown rivalries, old-standing grudges and pitchers beaning batters by no accident and bench-clearing brawls and ejected red-faced managers.

You are stories and scorecards, statistics and superstitions, sheer luck and smart thinking. You are history and legend. You are my favorite sport and my favorite team, a roaring sea of fans in red and the legacy of the birds on the bats, Pujols and Molina and the constant promise of a great season. You are baseball.

Baseball, I love you.