Bring On Baseball

     My very first memory of going to a Major League Baseball game comes the summer after second grade.
     I was seven years old and the fifth child of nine children.  My dad stashed six of them in the station wagon one July summer night, and we set out to old-time Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia to a double-header against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
     I don't remember too much about the game, but I remember my mom stocked a giant cooler full of Cokes, homemade hoagies, and boxes of Tastykakes.  I also remember that we sat in the second to last row from the top of the stadium, where it felt like you might fall out of your seat everytime fans erupted into applause.  I don't know who won what game that night, but I sure liked the music spontaneously playing from an organ that was somewhere in the stadium.
     Over the years, as a youth, I admit I wasn't much of a baseball fan.  Even though that hot summer night with my dad, siblings, and Mike Schmidt is forever etched in a category called "perfect memories", baseball and me had a very distant relationship in my early years.
     I blame much of that on my inability to play softball, which I guess is sort of the female version of the game.  There are differences, naturally, but the basics are there:  the bat, the ball, the glove, the bases, and all the same positions.
     I never did quite find the position that suited me.  I couldn't pitch accurately.  I didn't like being crouched as a catcher.  I did ok at first base, but never seem to know where to throw the ball if I was any other position on the infield.  In the outfield, I felt too far away from the action, and, whenever, a ball did happen to come my way out there, I had long since stopped paying attention to the game.
     Eventually, lacrosse became the spring sport I got hooked on.  I like the running around, the checking, and the ability to redeem any mistakes I made within seconds or minutes ~ as opposed to waiting three or four games before I had the chance to make up for a fielding error.
     But the leisurely pace of baseball, like softball, was exactly the reason I didn't like it when I could still physically run around without serious issue ~ and the very reason I love it now.
     The start of baseball season heralds in a seven-month period of sunlight, barbecues, swimming pools, hot dogs, thunderstorms, ice cream cones, and changing channels on the TV to "check the Phillies game."  If it's slow-going, you can turn it back to Bones.
     But if it's reaching an inspiring comeback run or a crowd-pleasing batting spree or even staving off an oppponent whose bats have suddenly come alive, then the channel stays for the duration of the game, right down to the final inning.
     So, bring on Major League Baseball ~ and have a wonderful season-opening day!