Baseball: Not Just A Game

On the eve of what should be a wonderful Fall Classic, I started wondering about what the thinking was on September 11th and the days after as we pushed back the season a week. The most prevalent thing I heard was, "It's just a game." I wondered if they really believed what they were saying. Anyone who knows baseball and anyone who knows America knows that is about as far as you can get from the true meaning of the game of baseball.

For over 150 years we have played the game. In sandlots, in wide open parks, on cement covered streets, on gravel filled diamonds, and unused pastures we have played this game as though it meant everything. Many a boy or girl has learned the meaning of sacrifice and patience while playing the game. It turns young children into growing teens, growing teens into adults, and adults back into children again.

This game is nothing but a competition between batter and pitcher, the simplest of contests, but the most complicated of tasks... for both. The pitcher must throw this hard, small ball into a small square above home plate. The batter must hit that ball in a place where the defense cannot get to it. Simple. Difficult. All in one amazing contest.

This is the appeal, I think. For of all the individual contests in the game, it is, at heart, a team sport. You must share, help, sacrifice, contribute, and work together, as a unit, or there would be no victory. It is the ultimate teacher of being a teammate and an individual at the same time. There are no successes without your contribution yet there are no successes without the team either. Simple. Difficult.

The character it builds has been seen throughout the years in the people who have played the game. Now when I say, "...played the game." That's what I meant. I have seen many major league baseball players who played the sport or who went to work. But the people I treasure are those who played the game: Ted Williams -- loves the game like no other, but gave four and a half years to his country in times of need; Tony Gwynn -- when he can't sleep he watches tapes of himself batting to relax; Cal Ripken -- reminded us what a legend is; Nomar Garciaparra - plays the game. He just plays the game; Kirby Puckett -- had more fun being a big league ball player than anyone I can remember; Joe Torre -- I don't remember much about him as a player, but as a coach he has taught the 'team game' to perfection; Tommy Lasorda -- Just loves baseball.

These are just a few of the professional players and coaches who love the game. Notice one other thing about them? They are honest, hard-working, character kind of guys. The ones you want your daughter to date. They may not agree with you, but they'll tell you to your face. I think this has partly to do with baseball and what it has taught kids for the past 150 years. Sacrifice. Patience. Simple. Difficult.

I read this passage tonight from The Sporting News. I hope they don't mind if I share it with you:

"Many upheavals have come during the life of this young nation, but it is significant that throughout prosperity or depression, war or peace, the game has endured for more than 100 years. The National League is opening its sixty-sixth season, the American it forty-second, all of them without a lapse, regardless of what domestic or international conditions have been. Little wonder, then, that Americans look to baseball as its national pastime - something as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar and as an outlet to which they can turn to ease jangled nerves in times of crisis, or to give expression to their exuberance in periods of high spirits. People must have a vent for their feelings -- they cannot keep them pent up. The game always has served that purpose and in the present moment of uncertainty, it stands ready to fill that role again."

It could have been written yesterday (except for number of seasons), but it was written sixty years ago, on opening day 1941, before Pearl Harbor and the three and a half years that followed. Even then they knew what the game is and was.

This "game" is a tribute to our history as a country. This game moves along with the tides and time, stopping only when those in it falsely think they are bigger than it. Lessons I hope we need not learn again. This game holds hope eternal as every season is new, with dreams for a championship rising from every ball park in the land -- Yankee Stadium down to the practice field at the end of your street.

We learn gracious victory and civil defeat. We learn the meaning of work and practice in order to reach goals. We learn the meaning of shaking your opponents hand at the end of a game. We learn. Simple. Difficult.

It is here that those who proclaim, "It's just a game," have gone gravely wrong, a lesson that those responsible for the atrocities of September 11th will find out. We learn that no matter what happens, you get up, you dust yourself off, and play again. You do not give up and you do not give in. If baseball teaches us anything, it's persistence.

I'm looking forward to hearing "Play ball!" tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the great Mussina-Schilling matchup. I'm also looking forward to hearing "God Bless America" in the middle of the seventh inning (thank you Fox for showing it every game). That has been a wondrous addition to each game and I hope they continue it next year.

When Curt Schilling throws the first pitch he will be continuing a tradition that started when Teddy Roosevelt was President. He will become a part of the intertwined history that is America and baseball. Through troubles and joy, through prospers and declines, through heartache and happiness, baseball has been at least a diversion and at best a picture of hope and joy for the population. Undeterred by time and events it has given us all a place to look forward to.

A game? Yes. Just a game? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Simple.