THROUGH THE AGES, IT HAS BEEN BASEBALL

By Tom Anselm

And so it will begin. After what no doubt were the most contentious negotiations amongst millionaires since the latest session of the US Senate, Major League Baseball’s owners and players have agreed to return to the Elysian Fields of Dreams starting July 23. Summer training started July 3.

In spite of a few rules changes that smack of kiddie training league, we will once again be treated to sights of The National Pastime, at least on television. Shame, shame on all of them for taking so long to figure this out. But at least a season will be played, although much fewer games.

I have to say, I am thrilled.

Sportswise, baseball was my first love. Sweaty, dusty evenings at Bissell Hills Park, bugs and gnats as populous as parents in webbed lawn chairs. If you fouled one over the chain-link fence you had to be careful retrieving it not to step in a fresh patty from the inhabitants of Tebbe’s farm. It was the game of my youth, played daily on church yards and make-shift fields, rousting up as many kids as you could find, little brothers included.

Bases were whatever was handy… a glove, a grocery bag. Homeruns were over the bushes at the top of the hill. It was and is the game of the 9-inch diameter, 5-ounce ball and rounded piece of wood, the only sport where the defense controls that ball. It was the game of my greatest athletic thrill, 1961 St. Jerome City Champs. Baseball was the game that also broke my heart, once I started wearing glasses in 7^th grade and saw how scary the fastball was, and how I should have seen better but never could figure out the curve.

It was the game I listened to on summer night, transistor radio tucked under my pillow, Harry Carey and Joe Garagiola bringing the action to life. Baseball is the game of which it has been said that in every game, there is a better than even chance something happens that you have never seen before. Which just adds to its magic.

In the current state of the world, things shut down, all the mess, I have been hoping for a return of the game. Son Joe gifted me with the Ken Burns documentary “Baseball.” It has been a joy to watch, and a reminder of how much I miss it.

In the Burns special, I amazed at truly American the game is. Which can be both good, and bad. Good, in that it has been in our culture since the early 1800s, probably descended from the British games of Rounders and Cricket, turned into Town Ball. The games were played by rich and poor alike, on city streets and country fields, then eventually parks and dedicated stadiums.

Good, in that it has survived wars and depressions, been a necessary diversion for the masses, a way out of poverty for many, and eventually a boundless commercial enterprise. Good, also, in that it embodies individual talent and one-on-one competition within a framework of cooperative team play in order to achieve success. All of this, “All-American” in scope.

   But bad, you may ask? How can baseball possibly be bad? Well, for over a century after its inception, the powers of the game excluded players, many of whom possessed amazing talents, simply due to their epidermal hue. This being a scandal larger than the 1919 Chicago White Sox throwing the World Series. An American ‘value’, also? Sadly, yes. Systematic racism, prejudice, discrimination, segregation… hatred. All tainted pieces of our past as a nation, and baseball mirrored these actions, embodied these traits, to the detriment of not only the players, but also to the growth of the game. And to our national soul.

It wasn’t until 1947 that Jack Roosevelt Robinson officially became the first African American to play on a major league baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Their General Manager Branch Rickey, formerly of the St. Louis Cardinals, saw the time was right, and working on both altruism and good business sense, changed the game forever. Making it truly The National Pastime, at last. And Rickey did his part of beginning to heal the open wound of racism in the United States.

The rest, of course, is history. Alas, according to some reports, today there are fewer than 70 African Americans playing in the Bigs. Despite the likes of Mays, Gibson, Brock, Campanula, Bonds, Aaron, F. Robinson, Reggie Jackson and so many more, the numbers have dwindled in last few decades The Game of my youth has lost its luster for kids of color. We as a nation once lost the contributions of the Negro League stars named Josh Gibson, Buck O’ Neill, and Satchel Paige. And now, well, who knows just what we are losing, as athletes of color chose other sports over baseball.

But I have to feel there is hope.

As James Earl Jones said in the classic movie, Field of Dreams:

“The one constant for all the ages, Ray, has been baseball. 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. This field, this game, it’s part of our past, Ray. It reminds me of all that once was good, and could be again.” Baseball, mirroring America.

And so, late this July in the year of Our Lord 2020, let us once again rejoice in the glorious words, “Play Ball!”

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