When A Diamond Was A Guy’s Best Friend

Image via Wikipedia

I used to live for baseball. Hard to believe now, but when I was a kid my life revolved around the game.

I could play with my friends in the backyard all day every day of the summer. As soon as I was old enough I joined a local team and played for years. Shoot, I’d even go inside early some nights (before the street lights even came on!) just so I could watch the Pittsburgh Pirates on TV while I dutifully kept stats in my score book.

I dreamed of being a big leaguer some day and making a living on that field they called the diamond. Just about anybody who met me after the age of 13 would probably be surprised to learn of this childhood passion of mine.

The game we once called America’s past time is more past its prime than anything these days, but few things can pour nostalgia over me like baseball. When I put on a glove and catch that first long throw in many months, the muscles in my hands and arms remember. And when I hear that thump in the glove or crack of the bat, my mind recalls a thousand days beneath a ball cap cursing the sun for blinding me in the face of a high fly ball but then begging that same sun not to go so I could have just one more turn at the plate.

Baseball is as close to poetry as I’ve ever come.