A Game for All America - by Ernie Harwell

Baseball is President Eisenhower tossing out the first ball of the season; and a pudgy schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. Its the big league pitcher who sins in night clubs. And the Hollywood singer who pitches to the Giants in spring training.

A tall, thin old man waving a scorecard from his dugout -- that's baseball. So is the big, fat guy with a bulbous nose running out one of his 714 home runs with mincing steps.

It's America, this baseball. A re-issued newsreel of boyhood dreams. Dreams lost somewhere between boy and man. It's the Bronx cheer and the Baltimore farewell. The left-field screen in Boston, the right-field dump at Nashville's Sulphur Dell, the open stands in San Francisco, the dusty, wind-swept diamond at Albuquerque. And a rock home plate and a chicken wire backstop -- anywhere.

There's a man in Mobile who remembers a triple he saw Honus Wagner hit in Pittsburgh 46 years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that a 16-year-old sandlot pitcher in Cheyenne is the new "Walter Johnson."

It's a wizened little man shouting insults from the safety of his bleacher seat. And a big, smiling first baseman playfully tousling the hair of a youngster outside the players' gate.

Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is, seen and cheered -- or booed. And then becomes a statistic. In baseball, democracy shines its clearest. Here the only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rule book. Color is something to distinguish one team's uniform from another.

Baseball is Sir Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, asking his Brooklyn hosts to explain Dodger signals. It's player Moe Berg speaking seven languages and working crossword puzzles in Sanskrit. It's a scramble in the box seats for a foul -- and a $125 suit ruined. A man barking into a hot microphone about a cool beer, that's baseball. So is the sportswriter telling a .383 hitter how to stride, and a 20-victory pitcher trying to write his impressions of the World Series.

Baseball is a ballet without music. Drama without words. A carnival without kewpie dolls.
A housewife in California couldn't tell you the color of her husband's eyes, but she knows that Yogi Berra is hitting .337, has brown eyes and used to love to eat bananas with mustard. That's baseball. So is the bright sanctity of Cooperstown's Hall of Fame. And the former big leaguer who is playing out the string in a Class B loop.

Baseball is continuity. Pitch to pitch. Inning to inning. Game to game. Series to series. Season to season. It's rain, rain, rain splattering on a puddled tarpaulin as thousands sit in damp disappointment. And the click of typewriters and telegraph keys in the press box -- like so many awakened crickets. Baseball is a cocky batboy. The old-timer whose batting average increases every time he tells it. A lady celebrating a home team rally by mauling her husband with a rolled-up scorecard.

Baseball is the cool, clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby, the flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an overaged pixie named Rabbit Maranville, and Jackie Robinson testifying before a Congressional hearing.
Baseball? It's just a game -- as simple as a ball and a bat. Yet, as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. It's a sport, business -- and sometimes even religion.

Baseball is Tradition in flannel knickerbockers. And Chagrin in being picked off base. It is Dignity in the blue serge of an umpire running the game by rule of thumb. It is Humor, holding its sides when an errant puppy eludes two groundskeepers and the fastest outfielder. And Pathos, dragging itself off the field after being knocked from the box.

Nicknames are baseball. Names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Dazzy.

Baseball is a sweaty, steaming dressing room where hopes and feelings are as naked as the men themselves. It's a dugout with spike-scarred flooring. And shadows across an empty ballpark. It's the endless list of names in box scores, abbreviated almost beyond recognition.

The holdout is baseball, too. He wants 55 grand or he won't turn a muscle. But, it's also the youngster who hitch-hikes from South Dakota to Florida just for a tryout.

Arguments, Casey at the Bat, old cigarette cards, photographs, Take Me Out to the Ball Game -- all of them are baseball.

Baseball is a rookie -- his experience no bigger than the lump in his throat -- trying to begin fulfillment of a dream. It's a veteran, too -- a tired old man of 35, hoping his aching muscles can drag him through another sweltering August and September.

For nine innings, baseball is the story of David and Goliath, of Samson, Cinderella, Paul Bunyan, Homer's Iliad and the Count of Monte Cristo.

Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch. And then going home to Harlem to play stick-ball in the street with his teen-age pals -- that's baseball.

And so is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying, "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth."

Baseball is cigar smoke, hot-roasted peanuts, The Sporting News, winter trades, "Down in Front," and the "Seventh-Inning Stretch." Sore arms, broken bats, a no-hitter, and the strains of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Baseball is a highly paid Brooklyn catcher telling the nation's business leaders: "You have to be a man to be a big leaguer, but you have to have a lot of little boy in you, too."

This is a game for America, this baseball!

Never will we forget...

I've spent all day today reading Twitter and Facebook, seeing everyone remember, and also never forget, the events of September 11, 2001. Being able to have access to celebrities and influentials on Twitter has provided a new light on those who we often forget are human. Being able to see that Bill Simmons (my favorite sports writer) had the same emotions on the days following 9/11 and used the same outlets to help ease his pain is very comforting. Being able to share with him, and hundreds of thousands of others, videos of David Letterman's and Jon Stewart's opening monologues from their first shows back helps ease the pain that still lingers eight years later.

Being able to interact with friends and see their memories, 140 characters at a time, is also great. Seeing the pride that still builds in those from New York and the love that still lingers from those who have visited is amazing. Being able to ask one another where they were on that day, what they remember, and what they'll never forget is something we might not have been able to do just a handful of years ago.

As a child, and still to this day, I can hear my Dad telling us about when he first found out that JFK had been killed. One of his classmates had left school during lunch to buy thread for a sewing class and found out. I've heard that story at least fifty times in the course of my life. It used to drive me crazy because it seemed like he told the same people the same story over and over.

I realized today that it doesn't drive me crazy anymore. I'm sure I'll tell my children every year on September 11 where I was, what I was wearing, what my thoughts were, and what I did the rest of the day. I think I wrote about it several years ago in my former blog on MySpace, but I haven't shared in a few years. Here is my story...

I was a freshman in college in 2001. The 11th of September fell on a Tuesday, so I had World History at 9:30am and Psychology at 2:00pm. These were two classes I almost never skipped, so sleeping through my alarm until 9:25 was odd for me. I woke up angry at myself since I slept too late to get ready and make it to class, but also ready to enjoy my free time for the next four and one half hours. I put on my middle school Peer Modeling Team (Every 8th grade guy wants a shirt that says PMT in huge letters across the back) and black basketball shorts, brushed my teeth, and went downstairs.

I turned on the television and tuned into ESPN for what I thought would be my first daily dose of Sportscenter. The scene I immediately saw was the New York harbor with a huge smoke trail rising from the buildings. The breaking news headline read something about two planes crashing into the tower. Moments later, the first tower collapsed. I didn't stop watching TV until I went to class at 2:00.

Class only lasted a few minutes, I don't know why I even went, and I drove to my grandma's house since my aunt was in town. We continued to watch the news reports with new video surfacing as the day progressed. We still didn't know what had happened yet, so we discussed what the possible scenario might be. From that point on, my memory is fuzzy.

My first memory of beginning to feel better about the situation at hand is watching the St. Louis Cardinals game on baseball's first day back after the 11th. Jack Buck read a poem which he had written and then, crippled from a stroke, with tears in his eyes, he muttered the words, "Should we be here? Yes." I can still hear him say those words to this day. They will forever comfort me.

Slowly, but surely, our country began to heal. Our television shows returned, our sports teams returned to action, and our lives became normal again. I wish there wasn't a day each year where we were reminded of those who lose their lives so innocently, but I'm so grateful there is a day for us to always remember them, as well. It doesn't seem like eight years ago to me, mostly because life flies by quicker than we realize, but also because that day alone seemingly last eight years.

Always we remember,
B

Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.

It has almost become a tradition of sorts, an unofficial tradition. On September 11th, I read the blog post that John Mayer wrote just days after the tragedy occurred in New York on that memorable day in 2001. I read it and feel a sense of power and pride. I read it and almost feel a sense of arrogance because I am a United States citizen.

I shouldn't have those feelings, regardless what the circumstances have brought upon my country or my personal being. I try to show loving kindness through all of my thoughts and actions, but sadly that is not the reality of who I am. I try to believe that no man or woman is greater than any other, yet I constantly catch myself judging others for their actions and believing that my way of doing things is better.

In the days following September 11th, we were a country united under an umbrella of fear, hostility, sadness, liberty, and an unknown future. We understood that we truly, and always have and forever will, had more in common than that which divides us. We raised our country's flag in honor of those we lost and those who work to protect our rights and freedoms.

Where have those days gone?

I write this on September 10th with a sense of sadness for the country I live in and its people. We have become so consumed in our own lives, beliefs, opinions, and possessions that we refuse to listen to the world around us. I don't have the answers to fixing the big problems we face, but I hope I am able to do my best where I can. I hope I am able to help my fellow countrymen if they should need it.

I hope...

And no good thing ever dies,
B