The boys of summer are back and tomorrow is the first official game of the 2009 Major League Baseball Season, with opening day officially on Monday. With this fresh start, I’m reminded of several times when baseball transcended the game and extended its hand to the nation in her time of need. As James Earl Jones so eloquently states in Field of Dreams, “America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.” From “The Babe” to Jackie Robinson, Mick and the “Iron Horse”, to a man simply known as Pete. From the No Hitters of Nolan Ryan to the incredible endurance of Cal Ripken, the Black Sox to the Big Red Machine, baseball has definitely marked the time. It’s survived 2 World Wars, a Great Depression, Vietnam, its own demons with the steroid era and helped carry a nation through her grief after 9/11. A time when current events caused a 7th inning stretch to shift from “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to stirring renditions of “God Bless America”, a welcome return to faith in a time of need.
Through these stages our National Pastime has marched on, because baseball is bigger than a game, bigger than the players. It definitely reminds us of all that’s good, of our youth and catch in the backyard with Dad or pre-game warm-ups of wiffleball with Mom. From generation to generation baseball has paralleled society like railroad tracks in the distance, barely able to be seen as separate. In the face of these times of our most recent of struggles, here we stand again with baseball on the cusp of a season filled with the unknown. No matter how busy we get, no matter how complicated or dire a situation might be, pause from life, gather the family, and head out to a baseball game. Let your cares cease for a brief moment in time, as you’re reminded of those afternoons where the cool of the grass was under your feet and the warmth of the sun was on your back, all the while a baseball glove on one hand, ready for whatever life brings your way.
