To mark this day, when things begin again, or sort of, I am posting this piece from my book, Mets Fan:
The Return of Baseball
Over the winter, I will follow the signings and trades. The drugstores will turn orange and black, then red and green, then red and pink. And just when I am beginning to feel that there never was such a thing as baseball, pitchers and catchers will report to camp in Florida. In the papers, I will see pictures of players on a field, doing stretches in warm sunlight. For me, it will still be cold outside. But the cold night without baseball will be over.
Nothing much happens in camp in February, but there will be interviews and features anyway. If something does happen, if someone says something stupid, or is late for practice, it will be blown up out of proportion. Everyone will be eager for something to happen. But nothing will happen. Still, I will read every word of the articles as religiously as if it were October and the Mets were in the playoffs.
Then, on a weekend in early March, I will hear the voices again, the ones that always awaken me from my winter slumber. I will hear the familiar songs, the old commercials, the new commercials, and all the sounds of a game. I will hear the new names, of the guys who will soon be cut, and I dream of their future. I will remember hearing other names for the first time. I will imagine that I can tell something from the first winter at-bats. I will try to read the tea leaves.
There aren’t many good reasons to listen to or watch an exhibition game. But I will do it anyway and I will enjoy it. By late March, I will be asking: “Aren’t they ready yet? Haven’t they done this before? Do they really need this much time?” Finally the rosters and lineups will be set. A couple of games against rivals will seem kind of real but not real enough. When the season is finally ready to start, I will be more than ready. I will feel as if I’ve earned the warm air and the meaningful games.
I will be rewarded with Opening Day and all of its momentous pageantry. Players will line up on the sidelines. I will cheer and get a lump in my throat. The first game will begin and I will marvel that the at-bats actually count and will live forever in the statistics. I will forget all of the good years that began badly and all the bad years that began well. After all the late winter dreaming, I will be so anxious for real baseball that I will have forgotten how little a single game, a single clutch hit, a single botched relief appearance, really means. It does not mean more, just because I am paying more attention, as I savor the first sweet drops I squeeze from the season.
As April moves towards May, I still won’t know what is real and what isn’t. The fielders’ hands will still be cold. Some of the pitchers will be getting nervous looking for their rhythm. Some of the batters will take advantage and others won’t. The batting averages of the league leaders will be ridiculous. Some teams will have winning streaks and I will make little changes to my pre-season predictions. Soon enough, most of the obscure names will fall from their positions at the top of the leaders’ lists. The standings will no longer look as if they have been shuffled by a crazy person. The season’s one or two real surprises will settle into substance. The rest of the anomalies will drop like cartoon characters, when they finally realize they’ve run off the end of the cliff.
The leaves will be back on the trees. The articles will have better information, but I won’t read them with as much urgency. I will forget that there was so recently a time without baseball and without leaves. I will be in the middle of it all over again.
©Dana Brand 2007
