I went to Harbor Park to pick up my tickets for the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals exhibition game today. For me it feels like life is returning, winter in all of its bleakness is ending and spring really is here. The seats are great, section 102 row A, right behind home plate field level.
For me something sets baseball apart from all other sports. I think this goes back to my childhood when my dad made me learn the fundamentals of the game and weather we were attending a game in person, watching one on television or playing catch, pepper or practicing infield or pitching dad was all about the game. Of course he was the same way with football, hockey and basketball, but the sport that he seemed most passionate about was baseball. As a kid he was a Cincinnati Reds fan. His mother, my grandmother who hailed from the hollers of West Virginia was a die hard Dodgers fan. That I still wonder about to this day, but she was the same woman who as a widow in the late 1930s went to work, raised her two boys and bought her own house. Unlike most of the sate she was also a Republican, long before West Virginia ever voted for for either President or statewide office. Now that I chased that rabbit down the hole back to baseball. Granny was a Dodgers fan in a land of Reds, Indians and Pirates fans, fierce and independent but unfortunately taken in by the power of the dark side. Yet any time you went to Granny’s house and there was a game on, the television was tuned in to it. We were immersed in baseball.
Dad alsways made sure that we got to see baseball wherever we lived. In 1967 he took us to see the Seattle Pilots which the next year went to Milwaukee and became the Brewers. In the elementary schools of those days our teachers who put the playoff and World’s Series games as many were played during daylight hours. I remember watching Bob Gibson pitch when the Cardinals played against the Red Sox in the 1967 series. It was awesome to see that man pitch. I remember the Amazin’ Mets upsetting the Orioles in 1969 and the Orioles take down the Reds in 1970. Who could forget the 1970 All Star Game where Pete Rose ran over Ray Fosse at home plate for the winning run and the great dynasty teams of the 1970s, especially the Reds and the Athletics who dominated much of that decade and the resurgence of the Yankees in the summer that the Bronx burned.
When were were stationed in Long Beach California dad had us at Anaheim stadium all the time. I imagine that we attended at least 30 games there and a couple at Dodger stadium that year. We met a lot of the players and I entered the m”My Favorite Angel” contest and my entry was a runner up, netting me two seats behind the plate and having Dick Enberg announce my name on the radio. I wrote about Jim Spencer a Gold Glove First Baseball who later played for the Yankees. I still have a hat from that team with numerous autographs on the inside of the bill including Sandy Alomar, Jim Spencer, Jim Fregosi, Chico Ruiz and Billy Cowan. When we moved to northern California we got to see the A’s dynasty teams including a number of playoff games. I got to see Ed Halicki of the Giants no-hit the Mets a Candlestick on August 24th 1975. I got to see some of the greats of the era play, Catfish, Reggie, McCovey, Garvey, Vida Blue, Harmon Killebrew and so many others. I also became acquainted with Minor League Baseball at this time through the Stockton Ports, who then were the Class A California League farm team for the Orioles. I remember a few years back talking to Paul Blair the Orioles great Paul Blair who played for the Ports in the early 1960s about Billy Hebert Field and how the sun would go down in the outfield blinding hitters and spectators in its glare.
As I have grown older my appreciate for the game, despite strikes and steroids still grows. I am in awe of the diamond. I have played catch on the field of dreams, seen a game in the Yankee Stadium Right Field bleachers seen games in other venues and thrown out the first pitch in a couple of minor league games. I am enchanted with the game. The foul lines theoretical go on to infinity, only broken by the placement of the outfield wall. Likewise unlike all other sports there is no time limit, meaning that baseball can be an eschatological game going on into eternity. The Hall of Fame is like the Calendar of Saints in the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican Churches. There are rituals, the exchange of batting orders and explanation of the ground rules, the ceremonial first pitch, players not stepping on the foul line when entering and leaving the field of play, no talking about it when a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter and the home run trot. The care of a field by an expert ground crew is a thing to behold, especially when they still use the wooden box frames to lay down the chalk on the baselines and the batters box.
My kitchen and much of my dining room are as close to a baseball shrine as Judy will let me make them. 
Me Twins First Baseman Rich Reese and my brother Jeff at Anaheim Stadium 1970
Since I returned from Iraq the baseball diamond is one of my few places of solace. For the first time I bought a season ticket to my local minor league team the Norfolk Tides. Section 102, row B seat 2. From there I will sit back and imagine the words of James Earl Jones in 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.”
In a sense this says it all to me in an age of war, economic crisis and division. In a sense it is a prayer. Peace and blessings, Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 