It’s almost baseball’s opening day and Florida Man used to be very excited. I’m not anymore and I know why and I’m going to tell you guys.
On Wednesday my friend Tom and I went to a spring training game in Palm Beach. It was a beautiful cloudless day in South Florida. Temps in the 70s and low humidity. There may have been 2,000 people. Great little stadium, red dirt, green grass, white lines. The beer, the brats, the Cracker Jacks were excellent. By the way, a bag of Cracker Jack was $4.79. And you thought eggs were expensive.
A group of nameless, to me and anybody else except relatives and friends, young men representing the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals played nine innings. The score was Nats 9, Stros 3 but the score meant nothing. It’s a bunch of guys trying to become big leaguers. You have to feel for them. Fabulous opportunity and what could be better than wearing a big league uniform, even if it only for a month. I envy them. I really envy them.
The reason I’m not excited about new seasons any more is related to the namelessness of the players. It’s not just because I’m an old complainer, which I guess I am, it’s because players change teams so often you can’t count on seeing the same team two years in a row. And players come and go pretty fast. The average career is about five years, but there are obviously exceptions. There are guys who play 15 years or longer.
Another negative for me is the fact that mediocre players make millions. If you know baseball, you know that a .250 batting average is pretty good these days. In my time (I hate the phrase but anyway) the good players hit in the low to mid 300s. The average guys were around .275.
I’m going to reminisce here The time machine is set on 1950.
I was a dedicated baseball fan and player. In those days, there were fewer teams so it was easier but I memorized the standings in the newspaper every day and I could tell you most of the scores from the day and night before. Of course nobody asked. We lived in Kansas City, where there was a Yankee farm team at the time, and my grandfather, Moe, took me to games on Sundays. We saw all the future Yankee stars of the era on their way up to the majors.
A word about Moe. He was badly injured in a car accident and had extreme pain in his legs. He used to soak his thighs with hot wash clothes in the evening. But he still got it together enough for us to take the streetcar to the games because I wanted to go.
I’m afraid I never thanked him enough for that. I know I didn’t. I’m not going to make any excuses because there aren’t any.
But I also played ball with friends from dawn to dusk every day in the summer and thought I had a future in the game. My Dad set me straight the summer of my 17th birthday.
I’m going to drag you further into my baseball past. I wrote this a while back during a period of extreme nostalgia about baseball. It’s supposed to be poetry.
In my mind a picture,
My dad, in his suit and tie
slips off his coat and lays
it on the grass near the car
he has just parked in our driveway.
I’m 12 years old.
I’ve been waiting for him to come
home and play catch.
I thought I was a pitcher. I had all
the moves, and i could throw okay
but didn’t have the size to be a
real player. I didn’t know that.
He did, but played along anyway.
I handed him a catcher’s
mitt, a gift from a friend of his, and
he squatted in front of the garage door
behind a plate I outlined with white chalk on the concrete.
I long ago had nailed wood strips across
the garage windows because I wasn’t always accurate.
My first throw was right over. He gave a thumbs up.
My second was right over, too.
The third hit the concrete inches in front of him
and smacked him in the ankle.
He winced.
I know it hurt. It was my best fast ball.
Maybe 40 mph, but off the ankle over his
wing tips. He shook it off.
He always did and got ready for the next one.
So my baseball fanaticism is deeply rooted, but I don’t think I’ll ever get that old feeling back. The thrill of seeing the same players on the same teams every year. Maybe other older fans don’t feel that way but I bet some do.