With a rake in my hand...

The other day I was at a local pub grabbing something to eat and getting some work done. As I was leaving, I was drawn into a conversation about music with a gentleman as I walked by the bar. I had overheard him from my table, and couldn’t help but put in my two cents worth on the way out. After a few minutes, he asked me to pull up a stool, which I took to mean that I had proven myself to be a credible source on the matter.  I took the seat, and after about 20 minutes our conversation picked up a 3rd patron and shifted from music to other subjects, such as history, education, and ultimately sports. Being in Scotland and in the company of two avid golfers, we spoke for a great while on that sport. I know my golf, and can carry my own in a conversation, though I don’t play the game much myself. However, I clearly didn’t share the passion that these two had for it. After a while, we lost one of our trio, and it was just me and my new mate John.  Continuing from our golf conversation, he asked me what my sport was. I, of course, told him that my love was for the game of baseball.  Telling me that he was not very familiar with the game, he asked,

“Why is it that you love it so much?"

I started to answer quickly because it seemed to me like I should have a ready response for a game that I had devoted so much of my time and thoughts to over the years, but I was surprised to find that I had no idea how to answer the question.

I glanced at the ground just beyond John and thought for a long moment.

Then, tilting my head slightly to the side, a smile turning up the left side of my mouth, I began to explain.

I said, “John, yesterday was a beautiful day: one of those days where you feel guilty staying inside, but you aren’t really sure what to do with your time. So here’s what I did. I filled a thermos with coffee, grabbed a book, threw my glove in the car, and decided to drive down to the river. After about two hours of reading and lying in the sun, I decided to head home. As I was driving back, I passed by a park and remembered the glove sitting in the back seat. I pulled over and broke it out.  I spent about a half hour throwing myself pop-flies and attempted to finally perfect the behind the back catch I have been working on for nearly 20 years now. It was during this that I realized I hadn’t caught a ball in about 10 months, which is easily a personal record for me. I mean John, there was a time that going 2 days would have been unthinkable.” I let this point sink in for a moment, for both John and for myself. “It’s interesting how something can be so central to our lives and our identity for so many years, and then become completely withdrawn from us. Actually, I suppose we become withdrawn from it.” He nodded in thoughtful agreement. “That glove is as much a part of me as anything I have ever owned. I have had it since I was 11. I can remember the place and day that I got it. I can remember breaking it in with Crisco and a hot oven. It’s been with me ever since, and if at any point since that day you had asked me exactly where it was, I could tell you without thinking. It has survived easily over 10 moves in the past 15 years, and when I moved over here, my two gloves were the only items I took as a carry on.” This caused him to smile.

“This is where my love gets a bit irrational though. I want you to know that I realize this part will sound a bit crazy to you.” He nodded I go on and gave me a look of assurance that he would not judge.  I looked him right in the eye and said in a softer, more serious voice, “I will put it on now and then just for the feel and the smell. Not just any glove though, it has to be mine. It has to be the same leather that has accompanied me in every dugout I’ve set foot in. It has to be the one that has soaked up the sweat of my hand, the dirt of the fields, the salt of the seeds in my bag, and the must of the trunk of my high school car. You know how a smell takes you back in time? The smell of my glove does that for me. And to be honest, each time I go to scratch the palm and close my eyes to take in its fragrance, I am a little nervous that it won’t happen--that maybe this time the magic will be lost. You know the old saying that you can never go home? Do you remember the day that you found the truth in the statement?” I paused. “When you finally understood it?” pausing again. “I think a part of me is afraid that one day I will pick up that glove, rub the leather, inhale, and it will just be a smell.  There will be no memory of playing catch with my dad on the side of the house, or hearing him tell me to, ‘Throw the dark one,’ when I had a guy down 0-2…or seeing my parents in the stands of my high school ballfield…or being conned into doing the dishes or mow the lawn in order to play catch…or watching a Spokane summer sun set over a freshly raked diamond as the temperature falls the last degree to perfect. No… I fear that one day, I will simply take in the aroma of leather… The years of sweat, salt, dirt, and Flexall 454 will just be added to the leather, distinguishable, but not magical."

I paused to catch my breath and make sure I hadn’t lost him with that revelation.

“I have been abroad now for well over a year and there are many differences between here and home. I miss certain aspects of the states, but outside of the people, one thing stands out above all. Spring and summer came and went John. I could feel it in the air, but I didn’t hear bats cracking, or gloves popping, or metal cleats on pavement. Since I was little, I swear I have been able to smell the beginning of baseball season in the air. The game of baseball truly does make America special.”

He did his best to look like he understood, but both of us new we weren’t entirely in sync, so I tried to explain further.

“Sometimes I think that everyone should rake a diamond once in their life. But I suppose it wouldn’t have the same meaning. You have to feel an ownership of that piece of land. You have to have a history with it. Some of my favorite moments in baseball were the hour before and after each practice and game when I had a rake in my hand, and I thought about nothing but the game. It was during this time that I would rake the dish, the area around the plate. When I was out on the dirt I would enter a Zen-like state. Every grain of that dirt would be contoured to my approval. Certain parts were raked toward the mound to cause the ball to bounce high and others to cause a low skip. It was my canvas. (I realize at this point that I am talking more and more with my hands, and I put them to rest on the bar.) I understand that it was mostly mental, but to me it meant that this little piece of land was mine, and I could manipulate it to do whatever I needed. It gave me an edge. It gave me a sense of control.” Then, looking like someone who just realized that they had been in love with their best friend for years, I said aloud, “Like no other place in the world, that particular piece of dirt allowed me, without fail, to find perspective. Not just about baseball. It gave me a feeling of peace.”

John looked at me inquisitively and with thick skepticism. “But you must admit it’s a rather boring game, right?” he said.

“No, John. It isn’t. Just recently I remember saying that I am beginning to accept that there are people who don’t love the game of baseball and can’t comprehend it as being beautiful, but I don’t understand it.  I’m guessing you don’t feel that way either. But you have an excuse since it isn’t played over here. For the others, I think it must be because they don’t see the game. They may have been to games, but they don’t see the game. To love it, you have to see the intricacies of each pitch and the constant focus of each player on the field at any given time: an orchestra waiting for the sound of the first note. You have to see a catcher stand up in the 9th with 1 finger in the air and yell out orders,
 “1Down-CornersIn4To1-RollaPairInTheMiddle-OutfieldDoOrDie-WhaddaYaSayNow.”
You have to see how the catcher’s muted conversation with the pitcher over the location and type of pitch about to be thrown dictates the movement of all 9 defensive players. And you‘d have to see the factors that weigh in on this decision, such as the count, the outs, the batter’s tendencies, his position in the box, the runners on base, the pitcher’s repertoire, the pitcher’s fatigue, the score, the inning, and most importantly, where they want the guy to hit the ball.  Only when you are able to see everything can you understand how a 2-1 ballgame can be so enthralling that you lose sight of anything beyond the walls. And only then can you honestly describe it as beautiful.

I realized that this last rant did not explain it well enough for him, or maybe it just bothered me that it had only scratched what I was trying to get at. It didn’t explain the passion. So I continued.

“And I suppose you need to know what it looks like, or hell what it feels like, to catch a guy taking off from first base out of the corner of your eye. You have to know what it feels like to win that moment. That challenge. Sport at its finest—when it is the most simple: A runner challenging you that he can get to the bag before you can throw a ball there. It’s simple; it’s beautiful. And it’s most beautiful because he was out by 2 feet before he began running because for the last 2 pitches you have been watching his every move and you called the perfect pitch up and away with just enough velocity, because you knew he was stealing before he did. Then you get to know what it feels like to watch your opponent trot back to the dugout across the diamond knowing that everyone is watching him, including you, so that you can lock eyes with him for just a moment--just long enough to turn up the left side of your mouth and use your glance to say, ‘That’s right.’ And like he never existed, you crouch down and go about your business with the next guy.

Now and then, I’ll pick that glove up and study it. I can see the variations of its original state. The different colored laces from when they busted my junior year of high school and the old man at the repair shop rethreaded it. (Yes, a baseball glove repair shop. Find one of those these days.) The man who worked out of a little shop and who couldn’t have been making any money at this outdated trade. The man who when I came to pick it up, asked me to catch him up on the local baseball scene and then didn’t charge me for the repair.  And if I look closer, on the thumb of the glove are all of the phone numbers that I have ever had, written in pen, faded, but legible: a written record of our journey. And on the heel are the scratch marks of many years of trying to rub off the etching of Jose Conseco’s signature because I could never get over the fact that the worst fielder in history had his name on my glove.

Even now, I’ll examine it and bury my face in its webbing. The smell always takes me back as I had hoped. Each time it is different and unpredictable. It may be to when my childhood friend, Chris, and I used to play catch at our dads’ softball games. Or maybe it will be when I made 3 errors in one game against East Valley, and I swore into my glove so many times that if it had emotions, it would be scarred to this day. Or maybe when I heard my high school girlfriend say my name from behind the backstop and I realized I was in love for the first time. Or maybe when a dear friend called me to the mound before the last inning he would ever pitch to share a few words with me that I will never forget, in a moment that still gives me chills to think about. Or maybe when I sat in the stands behind the dugout in May of 2003 trying to imagine what my life would be like without this game. Or maybe it will just be a random Monday practice, warming up down the line, talking about who hooked up with whom over the weekend and what an ass so and so is. It doesn’t matter. I loved it all. Every damn bit of it.

You see John, the way I see it, we like sports for many reasons. But those who love them, love them for the purity--the simplicity. In a life that has so many choices and so many ambiguities and so many factors and so many muddy consequences, sports offer rules and boundaries and finite ends. But all of these qualities are just the foundation that allows us to experience the great rewards of the game: the relationships, the memories, the adversity, the pain, the accomplishment, the joy, our childhood. 

We spend our time in many places and settings as we get older, but some allow us to grow more than others.

I came of age on the diamond."



I could have said all of this to John as I sat next to him on that stool. But I would have still felt the way I do now: like I didn’t even get close.

So instead, after he asked me that question, I glanced at the ground, eventually tilting my head slightly to the side, a smile turning up the left side of my mouth and said the only answer I could think of,
      
“Because it’s more than just a game.”