Play Ball!

Growing up in chilly New England ~ the first signs of spring ~ would come flicking across my parents grainy black and white TV set.

Each evening, while the snow was still deep in Massachusetts, a reporter from the local station would be on the air from exotic Sarasota, Florida where the Boston Red Sox would do their stretches and practice bunting. It was time for spring training. Play ball was the cry!

My cousin’s husband Ralph ~ a traveling salesman type ~ managed to get to Florida each March and would send us postcards of white beaches, orange groves and palm trees. This was long before Disney World, Cape Canaveral and Jet-Blue. Ralph might as well have been on the moon. He’d always scribble a message about his being happy to be back watching the Grapefruit League in action. On TV the lucky reporter would be talking about Ted Williams and the sunny weather.

My Dad and I would just sigh and listen to the wind blow outside.

Although I now live in Florida ~ and many a season has passed ~ it is still a happy ritual to see some baseball during spring training. So there I was yesterday sitting next to a couple who had just flown in from Mineota, Minnesota. I think that’s what they said. Their teeth were still chattering and they had lines on their foreheads ~ from ski caps or earflaps or whatever. They kept staring into the sun.

The game itself was inconsequential but the bats were cracking and players were punching their gloves. In the eighth inning, the right fielder ran down a 300 foot shot by the warning path and pulled it in. His momentum took him to the railing by the stands where he tossed the ball into the waiting hands of a young boy.

Timeless.