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April 03, 2005

Opening Night

It measures just 9 inches in circumference, weighs only about 5 ounces, and is made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stiched by hand precisely 216 times. It travels 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher's mound to home--and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fall away.

The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet the men who fail seven times out of ten are considered the game's greatest heroes.

It is played everywhere. In parks and playground and prison yards. In back alleys and farmers fields. By small children and by old men. By raw amateurs and millionare professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed. The only game where the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.

Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom.

At the games's heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that sometimes manages to be years ahead of its time.

It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to father and grandfathers. And it reflects a host of age-old American tensions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective.

It is a haunted game, where each player is measured by the ghosts of those who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope, and coming home.

"Baseball is not a life or death matter. But the Red Sox are."

Tonight the Red Sox begin their defense of their 2004 title, with David Wells facing off against Randy Johnson. I wouldn't bet against Randy ever, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Yankees win yet another AL East title in 2005. But the Yankees know that winning the East isn't enough, and that the Sox will still be staring them in the face in October.

But what is in many ways more important is that baseball is back. Tom Boswell once observed that there is something in the six months when baseball is played that is missing during the offseason; it's not that you have to watch a game, but it helps to know that it's there if you need it. I can't express it any better than that. With baseball beginning once again tonight, the days will be just a little brighter and happier regardless of who wins the games (though I'll naturally be rooting for the Sox to successfully defend their title). Welcome back to the Boys of Summer.

And to all those who said that Red Sox fans would regret seeing the Sox win it all because we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves: to quote Edna Krabapple: Hah!