Baseball

take me out to the ball....game!

Baseball. It says more than most words.

It is a sentence for the young, it is an invitation to play, be it sandlot or organized league.

It is a paragraph or more for those of us with graying heads, it is a summons to travel down the pleasant paths of memories.

I do not remember a time when I was not aware of baseball. I was probably around three when I recall my throw being critiqued. No boy wants to hear, “you throw like a girl.” I think I got over it.

Around the same age, I recall watching a ballgame beginning on television. We lived in Woodriver, Illinois. The local professional team was (and still is) the St. Louis Cardinals. I remember the opening of the game; it showed players rounding bases. The sponsor was Anheuser-Busch. They hawked with a signature song: “Busch Bavarian Beer, (yodeling) and clear as the mountain air.”

Later on, I remember listening to games on the radio. I was still a child. My uncle sat in the shade of a willow tree, Pabst Blue Ribbon and a cigar. We heard the iconic voices of Harry Carey and Joe Garagiola.

We lived in the country, on a gravel road. My brother and I seemed to always be throwing a ball, or swinging a bat. Friends were few, nearest neighbors with other children were at least a quarter of a mile away. When we did get together though, it did not take long to divide up into “teams” and play against one another. We took a minute break now and then when a passing car stirred up so much dust, we could not track the ball’s flight. At other times, foul balls that landed in the wheat field across the road introduced another challenge. The amount of wheat we destroyed searching for the only ball we owned surely exceeded the orb’s monetary value.

The first major league game I attended was around 1964. The Cardinals were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. We sat in left field in the wooden bleachers of Sportsman’s Park. Local residents rented parking space in their front yards. It was a simpler time.

Nearly a decade later I was in the U.S. Air Force, stationed across the river from St. Louis, at Scott Air Force Base. Admission was free if we wore our uniforms. Several of us would pile into Jack Thrift’s Toyota Corolla and make the 30-minute trip to the new Busch Memorial Stadium to watch the home team play.

That edifice has passed into history. The newest stadium is already twenty years old. It is a retro-style downtown ball park, a fitting cathedral for the National League’s premier team.

I still keep a ball glove handy. I am not a gifted athlete, not even close when dreaming. But there is something about the back and forth, the pitch and catch, that most American men of all ages can appreciate.

When living in Hampton, Virginia, my neighbor Dave and I would throw the ball in the front yard.

I toss it with my son when we visit in summer months. It is part of the American DNA.

My son, his wife and two boys, gifted me with a visit to the park for my 74^th birthday. We sat behind the home team’s bull pen, a great place to increase your odds of snagging a home run ball.

That did not happen that day.

My grandson had prepared a cardboard sign, encouraging a home run for his Papa Joe’s birthday. The creativity and exuberance of a ten-year-old is hard to match.

It was fun to sit with family members. The warmth of the sun, ball caps shading our eyes. With three adults, there was always someone to make a run for refreshments. We saw famous and favorite players, almost up close. The Cardinal right-fielder, Jordan Walker is one whose career I have cheered for since he came up to the major league. He has had a few setbacks, but has started off this season very well. He homered in the second inning at our game.

The outcome of the game was not what we hoped for. It is always fun to watch the Boston Red Sox. Not so much fun when they win versus the Cardinals, especially at Busch Stadium by a score of 9-3. But such is baseball.

We did not hurry from the park. Far from it.

My grandson had other ideas.

Our position behind the bull pen created an opportunity for him to make an appeal for a memento for me. That is exactly what he did.

I do not recall the magic words he spoke, but it was not long before someone from the bull pen tossed a ball up to my grandson, which he in-turn, gave to me for my birthday. I cherish it.

The season continues. The team is doing well. Perhaps another game is in our future as we “root, root, root for the home team.

Because if they lose, “it’s a shame.”