AH, WONDERFUL! ONCE AGAIN, HERE COMES BASEBALL!

By Edwin Cooney

I know, not everyone loves or even likes baseball. However, I insist that some of the most vital elements of the game -- hotdogs and beer, the almost delicious smell of freshly mown spring grass, and the stories which are delightfully entertaining -- are what make baseball so very human.

As for the stories, it isn’t so much that they have to do with baseball itself, it’s their themes of human audacity and disappointment, vulnerability and humor, triumph and tragedy, cleverness and confusion that make them real.

When I was 8 years old, I was introduced to “America’s National Pastime” by my maternal Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe was an avid Yankee fan. Baseball became our bond as it gave us something to talk about. Forced to grow up apart from my “real family,” baseball, with all its glories and occasional disappointments, was my magic bridge to the family that should have been my natural birthright.

Baseball, as much as balls and strikes, is the story of Yankee rookie shortstop Phil Rizzuto being handed a stool by ace Yankee hurler Vernon (Lefty) Gomez as he stepped into the shower. Gomez is said to have quipped, “You’ll need this kid! You’re so short that if you don’t use it, the water will be ice cold by the time it gets down to you!”

As much as hits and walks, baseball is the story of Jimmy Sebring, the left-handed hitting Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder who, on Thursday, October 1st, 1903 before 16,242 fans at Boston’s Huntington Grounds, hit the first home run in modern World Series history. Two years later, having been traded to the Cincinnati Reds, young Sebring gave up his big league career in midseason. “Why?” you may reasonably ask! The answer is he wanted to go home and play with Williamsport of the Eastern League to be nearer his sick wife. Jimmy returned briefly to play with the Washington Senators in 1909; however, there would be no 1910 season. James Dennison Sebring would die in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, December 22nd, 1909 at exactly 27 years and 9 months of age.

As much as baseball is about World Series glory, diamond rings and money, it is also about something very personal. When asked what the greatest satisfaction in the game was for him, former Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers left-handed pitcher Sandy Koufax replied, “It was that fifteen minutes in the clubhouse I spent after a World Series triumph, with guys I’d worked so hard with day in and day out over the previous eight or nine months of travel and pressure to bring that triumph about!”

As thrilling as is listening to baseball broadcasts is the pride of handing on to the youngest generation an identification with the game’s greatest stars. Hence, one of my biggest thrills came the day I handed a statue of Willie Mays I owned to an eleven-year-old boy.

Like nourishment itself, baseball is what you do with it. I spent Saturday evening a week or so ago with my younger lad as we each drafted players, over the internet, to compete in our separate baseball teams for Linguini’s Fantasy Baseball League. His team is called the Arrogant Bastards while mine is the Alameda Ligers. (A “liger” is a breed of cat, part lion and part tiger, found in many zoos around America and the world.)

I will spend many Sunday nights over the next few months comparing notes, challenging and being challenged, by the managers of nine other Linguini’s League baseball teams. With the possible exception of our exceedingly generous and occasionally pugnacious commissioner, these “managers” aren’t baseball geniuses; they simply love the game and the camaraderie of good-natured competition. Will it matter who wins the league prize being offered by the lovely manager of Linguini’s at season’s end? Well! Maybe for a minute or two, but much more memorable will be the hours we spend together managing, rooting, and wondering about our baseball fate.

Meanwhile, those who play the game, rookie and veteran alike, are getting ready for the coming season. Of course, they enjoy and anticipate their generous salaries and they are cared for, as if they were orchids, by exceedingly wealthy corporate types. Still, however, success depends on their ability to work and sweat themselves into shape. As they do so, older men who’ve been hired to manage them assess their strengths and weaknesses and ultimately dictate their fate. Former Orioles’ Manager Earl Weaver was once asked if releasing a player was the hardest decision a manager had to make. His reply was very telling. He said that the hardest decision he ever had to make, when he was a minor league manager, was to keep a player who had little chance of advancing to the big leagues in the game for another season because he needed a second baseman for that season.

If human concerns and wisdom are part of baseball, so is confusion -- even on the field. One day in 1926, Babe Herman of the Brooklyn Dodgers came up with the bases loaded. He drilled the ball off the right field wall, which scored Hank Deberry from third base. However, pitcher Dazzy Vance, who’d been on second, after rounding third, decided not to try and score because the ball had been relayed to the infield so quickly. Meanwhile, Chick Fewster, who’d been on first base, had already rounded second and was headed for third. At the same time, Floyd Caves (Babe) Herman -- who was a hell of a hitter but a lousy fielder and not terribly bright -- also rounded second with his head down, and headed for third. Suddenly, there were three Dodgers knocking noggins at third base. The Braves third baseman tagged all three runners. As it turned out, only two of them, including Herman, were out since Dazzy Vance was ruled by the umpire as having a right to third base because he’d already been there.

Even more than money, playing major league baseball is ultimately about boyish hopes and dreams coming true. Baseball may be a business with some teams approaching wealth in the billions, but to those closest to it -- especially on the field -- baseball remains a sport.

Of course, professional baseball has, by no means, a monopoly on the thrill of the game. My youth spent on the baseball fields of a residential school for the blind is evidence of that. Back then, we played baseball with volleyballs rather than with baseballs because it was easier to bat and field a large easily bouncing rubber ball than it was to play with a conventional baseball or softball. Today, young blind men and women play with large softballs containing beepers in them which make fielding a batted ball possible. The thrill of playing or listening to baseball for me is akin to love -- in that I’ll never get enough of it!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY