Love and Baseball

I was not born to play sports. I'm a girl--a girly girl, so I took dance. I don't run, I don't catch balls very well, and I never even made the cheerleading sqauds. As the eldest child in an era when girls were not encouraged to pursue sports, I didn't. I had younger brothers who would do that. To this day, I am one of the least athletic people I know.

In spite of being such a girly girl, I enjoy watching sports. My household was dominated by men, so we watched plenty of basketball and football on television. We liked baseball too, but the games were too slow for television. Since DC did not have a baseball team back then, we rarely watched games on TV anyway. The closest team was in Baltimore, and while Orioles' games could be accessed on one of the fuzzy affiliate channels from that city, my father sometimes took us all the way out to Baltimore's Memorial Stadium to see them play.

These were not common excursions, because it was a long ride to Baltimore and the Orioles were never that good, yet those trips were special. Baseball evokes this sense of nostalgia because it is a game all about memories. I actually remember my experiences at baseball games (like the Orioles Opening Day two years ago when it was bone-chilling cold and snowing in April). Every team has a glorious past or some famous player who "changed the way we watch the game," a phrase that I've heard uttered a million times. This is a game stuck in another era--nothing is as good as the game that was played back in ____ (fill in the blank). Its most dedicated fans are older than 50.

So, baseball season is here again, and I look forward to another year of baseball memories. Maybe it is because of Ken Burns and his epic documentary ten years ago. Maybe its because basketball and football have become too distracting both on and off the court. Maybe it is a function of getting older...

Actually, it is probably because I married an avid baseball fan from New York City. He watches games on television (which, in my opinion, is the same as watching paint dry or a game of golf). He plays softball during the summers. And we make those same trips to Baltimore, but more often because the Orioles play the Yankees and each season we must make at least 5 of these "pilgrimages".

Last fall when Major League Baseball was making its decision to move the Montreal Expos here, I swear Rick lit a few candles in hopes that the team would move here. When we got word of the decision, he had already signed up for season tickets. Later, when politics threatened to kill the deal, he emailed his disapproval to the entire city council and has vowed not to vote for any candidate that opposed his position.

Tomorrow, we will attend the first game at RFK Stadium. For him, it probably isn't that big a deal because it is an exhibition game and not Opening Day. For me, this is a big deal because it will remind me of an Easter Sunday game at RFK years ago when the Orioles were kind enough to make the trip to DC. To many of the older people in the crowd that day, there was the nostalgia of the days when DC had a team. To the kids, it was just a fun day at the ballpark. We had never been to a professional baseball game in our city.

I'm going to become one of those old coots who recalls baseball games like memories from my own life. I'll tell my children about the game tomorrow, even if it is just an exhibition game and I have no clue who the players are for our team. And with Baltimore still just a ride away, I can draw from two sets of memories. I think I love this game...