Baseball fans here?

[Bill in Oregon]

It's funny, but it's not so much that I love baseball as it is loving the idea of loving baseball. I usually don't pay much attention until the Series starts, but the world seems a better place when spring training is underway. A half century ago, a Saturday was incomplete without having a Giants game in the background on an AM radio. There was even a time long, long ago when we were allowed to bring our transistor radios to elementary school and listen to the Series, quietly, in class.
Here was a nice pondering in this morning's New York Times:

The Morning
March 16, 2024

By Melissa Kirsch

Good morning. Spring officially begins this week. For those of us who’ve been white-knuckling our way through winter, it can’t arrive soon enough.

When does spring begin? For some, it’s the second Sunday in March, when we turn our clocks forward by an hour in the United States. For others, it’s when they first realize they’ve finished dinner and it’s still light out, or when the first crocuses poke up through the snow. Is it when you can go outside without a jacket and not feel a chill? When you pack away the down bedding and down jackets for another year? In the Northern Hemisphere, the vernal equinox will officially take place this Tuesday, March 19, at 11:06 p.m. Eastern.

This year, impatient as ever for winter to end, I decided to skip my usual routine of fidgety calendar watching and see if I couldn’t do something to hasten spring’s arrival.

It’s only a three-hour flight from La Guardia (rainy, cold) to West Palm Beach (sunny, 81 degrees, slight breeze), and from there an hour’s drive to Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, the spring training home of the New York Mets. Even with the traffic of more than 7,000 fans descending on the ballpark (a subway series matchup with the Yankees, a hot ticket) and the few extra minutes you’ll need to make a quick change from jeans to sundress in a CVS parking lot, if you leave New York before dawn you can easily make the trip from winter to spring with enough time to grab a Nathan’s hot dog before the first pitch.

Sitting in the stands, watching baseball on a day so balmy as to have been cooked up in a lab to make a visiting New Yorker question all her life choices, it felt laughable that one might sit at home and wait for spring to arrive. Here in Port St. Lucie on a Tuesday afternoon, weeks before the season’s official start, cheery fans were decked out in team merch, drinking Modelo Especial tallboys and snacking on peanuts, reeling off stats, heckling the players. Here, spring was already happening.

Baseball devotees are known to anticipate the onset of spring with a special fervor. In February 1971, John Hutchens wrote in The Times, “He is beginning to emerge from his cotton‐wool haze, the hopelessly addicted baseball fan for whom life — if that’s the word for it — has amounted to nothing much since the last play of the 1970 World Series.” This is the kind of hyperbolic perspective on the seasons I identify with. I’m not a die-hard baseball fan, but I know the agony of which Hutchens writes, the way life seems to be on hold during the winter months.

Jerry Kraus, a snowbird from Utica, N.Y., who works at Clover Park during spring training, seemed to have the right idea, leaving the Northeast for Florida when the weather gets dicey. He was so in sync with the springtime vibe that he caught a foul ball right in his hand. (Baseball’s not Jerry’s only sport; he runs a Wordle league in which participants are given rules for letters they’re not allowed to use for their first word. On the day I met him, the rule was “No worries,” so your first guess couldn’t contain the letters W, O, R, I, E or S.)

In his 1990 book “Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball,” George Will tsk-tsked descriptions of the game as “unhurried” or “leisurely,” calling such observations “nonsense on stilts.” For the players, he writes, “there is barely enough time between pitches for all the thinking that is required.” But for this casual spectator, “no worries” could be baseball’s official motto. Being outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air, things do feel slower and easier. The fretting slows down. I love that baseball has long been considered America’s national pastime. A pastime is something that makes the passing of time pleasant. Isn’t that what we’re longing for in the winter months? Something that makes time not just tolerable but enjoyable?

By the time I left Florida, it was pouring rain and even a little chilly. How was I supposed to take springtime home with me, I wondered petulantly. It was still raining in New York when I landed. Spring isn’t just weather, of course, and it certainly makes no promises about rain. I’m trying to resist cliché, to keep from saying something akin to “spring is a state of mind,” even though I wish it were.

I went looking for spring and I found it where spring breakers find it every year, already in full, exuberant swing in the Sunshine State. My own official shedding of woolen garments and denunciation of seasonal funk will occur on Tuesday, when spring finally arrives. But having experienced 24 hours of spring’s full pageant, my own little preseason, I feel slightly pacified. Perhaps I can be patient as spring establishes itself, offer the season a little grace as it clicks into place. (N.Y.C. temperature as I write this: 36 degrees, but there’s definite blue among the clouds.)

[GunnyMack]

Sorry Bill but I can't stand professional sports. Why you ask? They are all over paid, they play a game and as such they do not produce anything to civilization in my eyes. I don't watch any of them. Give each player a wage that follows the national average and jobs- real jobs- for the off season. Some are called Greats, so they can hit or throw a ball but what else can they do? A skill set that is useless for everyday life.
However, as a kid I enjoyed playing baseball, football. Then I started shooting trap and never looked back!
Just like NASCAR, it's too commercial, and they are all crybabies. Now if you make these guys drive half the race then make them run the other half going the other direction with the lights off I might watch!!

[Bill in Oregon]

Will, you iconoclast, you!
I don't know how many games of whiffle ball we played in the street as kids, with chalk-marked bases and somebody yelling "CAR" every minute or two.
Never been much of a racing fan, although I like to watch the horses run -- and I will watch the TT motorcycle racing on the Isle of Man.
Bored by soccer, put to sleep by basketball, confused by rugby and utterly baffled by cricket ...

[gamekeeper]

Hey Bill the only thing I like about being British is I don't have to watch baseball or American football.....

[Bill in Oregon]

Another iconoclast! How many pints would we need to drink for you to explain cricket to me, John? Guinness, room temperature of course.

[JimT]

I was never a fan of any games played with a ball. I especially thought tennis to be absolutely useless. UNTIL one day I saw Gabriella Sabatini sweating and grunting and whacking that little ball and suddenly I became interested! However she disappeared from the scene and I lost all interest in tennis and reverted to my former beliefs.

[gamekeeper]

Bill even though I once worked for a famous Cricket club it wasn't until my son was made Captain of the local cricket team that I began to understand the rules... I never was a fan of ball games except the one that once got JimT's interest…

[Griff]

I loved playing baseball, hardball in school until I threw out my elbow trying tp please a pitching coach to improve my repertoire by getting a fast ball... like my sinker and curve weren't enough! (Lefty sidearm hurler). Then softball in the service and as an adult it city leagues.

And although a good friend played golf in high school, I never understood whacking a little ball around with a club, until I was stationed on Midway Island and had a Chief that loved the game and would take one of us youngsters along to improve our level of refinement, (as he put it). It didn't stick, I don't think I've played more than 5 rounds in the 53 intervening years. But, pro sports... do little to excite me, except when I can catch the All Blacks doing what they do best. WIN! My mom wouldn't let me play football... but she made sure to teach me the basics of Rugby and encouraged me to develop a little skill at some of the finer points! Rugby shouldn't be confusing to anyone that follows American football, since it is the mother sport!

[cas]

It's amazing that with how much I love baseball and always have, how deeply rooted in my life it is, my father's life, my grandfather's life, and now two generations of family members younger than I, how visceral my feelings about it are... it's sad how little I've come to care about major league baseball, for so so many reasons.


The movie Field of Dreams is great because it personifies some people's connection with it. In the movie some people saw the ball players, some didn't. That's baseball, some people feel it, some don't, and can't explain why.

[Grizz]

BATTER UP.jpg

Ah Bill, you posted the first interesting, decent, respectable, and accurate Times article in a hundred or so years!! The only disappointment was that the author neglected to post the Score of the game she attended. Thanks for posting this.

My Dad exquisitely summed up my baseball skills by noting that I couldn't catch a fly ball in a bucket. Which is true. It was my Mom who informed me that my baseball romance began in utero in Wrigley Field where my parents courted one another. Mom died wearing her Cubs ball cap. The ambiance of a baseball game still stirs something primordially basic in the rhythms of my days.

I recall watching my Dad's airline softball team playing another one in the Old Stadium over towards the Fort at the South end of the Golden Gate. I recall long columns, maybe marble seating, and a full field view with my Mother's arms around me. There is nothing that would be a viable trade for those moments.

The longer the game, the better. Overtime for an hour or two? Fan-tastic. Because the televised versions of 'pro' baseball games are so damaged by verbal diarrhea I will kill the sound and listen to the radio broadcast when possible. Those guys still call ballgames most of the time. Recently the local over the air t.v. has broadcast some triple A games, and that's so much fun to watch, and to listen to, that for me it might preempt the pro game or cover the commercial breaks. I also like women's softball and little league series, it's stuff happening the right way with the right timing and cadence and the infinite possibilities of the next pitch.

In the winter time I sometimes troll the 'best of' utoobe replays, or older time world-series games, just to see something that is straight, for a reminder. I suppose I am a fan, a grateful one, and noted a news article about the local team's new hot hot pitcher throwing out confused batters in the practice sand lot, and the ever present hope that this might be the year, for real.

BATTER UP !
grizz

[oldebear1950]

is strange to talk of baseball, on a gun thing, but ok I can do that.
I am 73 years young, and have loved baseball since I was about 7 years old and played little league in school , coached little league baseball, in California, Alaska, Oklahoma and Alabama.
I also tend to be a traditionalist, did not like them putting the lights up in Wrigley field, think the designated hitter should be banned, think the new pitcher rules should be banned, the new overtime rules done away with, raise the pitchers mound to what it was originally, make the bases the same size they were for over a hundred years.

[rossim92]

Go OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO's

[.45colt]

Professional Sports lost Me long ago. I see around 40% crybabies who ruin it for the rest of the hard working Guys trying to stay on the field. The money the make is an insult to any Man or Women who has worked their whole life.

[stretch]

Not a rabid sports fan, but I did like to watch NASCAR,
the occasional football game, and the occasional baseball game on TV.

Now one can't casually grab a beer, turn on the tube, and relax on a Saturday afternoon
without spending hundreds of dollars a month on some streaming or cable service.

So, while watching a good game or race is fun, I don't anymore. Not gonna
give my hard-earned cash to a bunch of rich, manipulative media and owner types.

And, as mentioned by others, too many of the players are spoilt, overpaid crybabies.

MASCAR was ruined by greed. Too many boring tracks and races, and too much
corporate money.

Still it's a lot of fun to watch a good baseball game with imaginative managers and good players.

-Stretch

[KWK]

I liked to watch MLB as a kid, but today I'd never consider attending a game. They present the game for the attention deficit crowd by filling every moment the ball is not in play with thumping music and silly videos on enormous screens. The local minor league team picked up that rot decades ago when the city built them a new stadium downtown. Blech.

I do attend a Vintage Base Ball Association game or two every year. That's closer to the minor league games I went to as a kid, even if the rules are different.

[Bill in Oregon]

I'd love to see a vintage baseball game sometime.
The last two MLB games I saw in person were in August of 1969, Giants against the Cubs, at Candlestick Park. Willie Mays hit home run 597 in the first game and 598 in the second. Even then, the hokey stadium organ was annoying.

[Drawdown]

I love MLB, started by going my first Reds game ? 1969 or 70. Saw em play last year in old Crosley Stadium, then first years in Riverfront. Started going to Braves game for our vacation every year from 1995-?2002 or 03?
But the best of it was my youngest played from time he's about 8 till he graduated. Best times was literally leaving work running to get to his HS games, 2-3 times week. Nothing better than that, and hot dog suppers!!!
He was a dandy pitcher and 3rd base

[LeverGunner]

I don't keep up with, or watch sports. But, baseball is an American sport that I think has a wholesomeness about it that other sports don't. I always had baseball cards as a kid, though everyone else had wrestling, or basketball cards.

If I was going to play a sport, it'd be basketball though. Hoops with friends is always fun, though... less fun now than when I was 20.

[Bill in Oregon]

It was a good day in the early 1960s when I managed to put five pennies together and I would walk to the mom-and-pop store and buy a pack of Topps baseball cards. As I walked home I would stuff that flat, stale slab of bubble gum in my mouth and slowly go through the pack. A Mickey Mantle baseball card was a red-letter day!

[LeverGunner]

It was a good day in the early 1960s when I managed to put five pennies together and I would walk to the mom-and-pop store and buy a pack of Topps baseball cards. As I walked home I would stuff that flat, stale slab of bubble gum in my mouth and slowly go through the pack. A Mickey Mantle baseball card was a red-letter day!

Hmm, I seem to recall stale bubble gum too. Though for me it was in the 80s/90s. For me, it was a Cal Ripkin Jr card.

[marlinman93]

Afraid I've never had much appreciation for professional sports regardless of what the game is. I could watch a shooting match if they had them on TV, and don't mind driving a fair distance to watch them locally. But otherwise pro sports doesn't ring my bell.

[Grizz]

Yeah OK but, what about professional airplane drivers? conceited and some might think over paid. what about professional medical "healthcare" experts? They seem to be continually wrong with herd momentum, and big paychecks to boot. And what about professional truck drivers? I mean, yeah they can make good money, some make great money, but for what? and what about. And what about professional professors who make trillions while subverting children and destroying America? Then there's professional judges, you know, destroying President Trump's life's work, etc. Out of this sample size, professional baseball players seem pretty tame, and they actually produce the product they are payed for. Seems like a bargain to me.

AND, i did not mean to slight anyone's profession, I don't watch baseball for the star players, I watch for the strategies and the coach's head battles, and the myriad details that add to or subtract from the total fabric of the long history of the game. The amount of money someone is paid is the least interesting and least important thing about the players.

---grizz

[Grizz]

It's funny, but it's not so much that I love baseball as it is loving the idea of loving baseball. I usually don't pay much attention until the Series starts, but the world seems a better place when spring training is underway. A half century ago, a Saturday was incomplete without having a Giants game in the background on an AM radio. There was even a time long, long ago when we were allowed to bring our transistor radios to elementary school and listen to the Series, quietly, in class.

Thanks again,

Here's a Cubs game from 1960, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZgFuWfdgZ4 It's possible I watched with Dad, or it's possible that we didn't have a tv yet. It has the stuff I enjoy hearing and none of the verbal diarrhea of the current versions. a time capsule

grizz