"Spring Training means flowers, people coming outdoors, sunshine, optimism, and baseball. Spring Training is a time to think about being young again." --Ernie Banks
With spring comes that old cliché of hope and newness. I could
write a hackneyed piece about how everyone starts on an even playing field at
Spring Training and that anyone can make the team, but I won't. I could talk
about the fresh-faced rookie at his first camp and the feelings that he must
experience when he gets to play with his idols for the first time, but again I
won't. I could even talk about how the Yankees must have put out a call for
players with epic names because somehow they've wrangled Zoilo, Zelous, and
Adonis into the same clubhouse. But...
...I won't. You’re lucky, too,
because I wanted to write a short story that starred Zoilo, Zelous, and Adonis
as gods of a mythical land made only of baseball diamonds. It would look
something like this.
Instead, let’s talk about the strangeness of baseball fandom.
Baseball fans love Spring Training. Other sports don’t do
preseason the way that baseball does. There are exhibition games and camps and
practices, but Spring Training is a unique and storied culture that’s as big a
thrill for fans as the World Series. It’s because of all of the cheesy things I’ve
already mentioned and so many more. This year, Spring Training was a totally new and different experience for me. I got to go to my first Spring Training
game a couple weeks ago, and I have a friend who’s been in a big league camp all spring. In
prior years, I’ve just watched Spring Training from my couch, a bar, or my bed
(I sleep with MLB Network on, but that’s not much of
a confession). This year, though, has been a new and interesting perspective on
the game in its training phase, and I’m sad to see it come to an end. While I’m
ready to see how things go in the regular season and to see if this friend of
mine makes a mark in the Majors (since we’re down to the end, I’m not jinxing
him by giving details here. You know how baseball players are with their
superstitions. We’ll revisit this another time), I love the laidback vibe of
the game I attended this March at Champion Stadium,
and I love that I just turned around and started talking to the two old guys
behind me like we were old pals. That’s baseball, though. Baseball is sunny
afternoons in crowded seats. Baseball is overpriced beer in souvenir cups and
awkward early spring tan lines. Baseball is conversations with strangers to
fill the breaks between innings—but not because it’s dull. Because it’s part of
the game. Baseball fans are the sharing type. We share stories, statistics, and
factoids, but it’s never really a competition. It’s more of a collective. It’s
a gathering of people whose passion for a game means having a head full of
facts that are useless to anyone outside that collective. When we get together
in a ballpark, we thrive on each other’s information.
“This guy pitching had Tommy John two years ago when he was in college.
He looks stronger than ever now.”
“That top-ranked prospect they put all that money into is hitting
below the Mendoza line for the spring. Hope it’s just growing pains.”
“This guy’s dad played minor league ball in the Reds organization;
it’s really great to see his kid getting a shot now.”
“Their designated hitter lost 25 pounds in the off season. Now he’s
stealing bases like Henderson.”
These kinds of statements about perfect strangers are only
important among perfect strangers who are just as perfectly strange. In other
words, your friends and family don’t care, but other baseball fans do. That’s what
sets baseball apart from other sports in my experience. I could be wrong, but
it’s only at baseball games that I’ve turned in my seat to face a group of
people I’d never seen before and struck up a conversation. Well, it’s the only place
I’ve done it successfully. In most other situations, you’re just as likely to
get a confused glare as an answer, but at a baseball game, you’re likely to
make a friend.
At least for the next nine innings. Then you’re likely to go on
your merry way. Or, as in a handful of cases, you make a lifelong friend who
you can call the next time you’re in town so neither of you has to go to the
game alone. Maybe it’s the pace of the game. Maybe it’s baseball’s aging fan
base. I’d like to believe it’s the invisible connection between people who know
the game. I’d rather believe in a divine intervention that bonds me to other
baseball fans even before we cross paths. It’s more poetic that way, and
baseball is always poetry.
Next week, that poetry takes on a different tone. The games start
to really count. We get to watch our old heroes do what they do best, and we
get to discover new heroes who might do it even better. We get to argue over
pitch counts and starting rotations, old school stats and sabermetrics, and sometimes
whose beard is most awesome. This is baseball. This is another year of dirt and
diamonds, and I couldn’t be more ready if I tried.
Now someone sing the national anthem so we can PLAY BALL!
