Once the winter ends it seems the world becomes a nicer friendlier place. Is football the evil spirit that leaves and gives us a chance of renewal? I doubt it, but maybe more than a coincidence. As the great George Carlin remarked, "Baseball has extra innings, Football has sudden death."
To name baseball a pastime seems like a perfect description. Most of us my age, look back on Little League as probably your first team sport. You got the uniform, tried to wear the hat to school everyday, and didn't really care too much about winning. My specialty was hit by pitch. Seems my on base percentage was way out of whack to my batting average if you know what I mean.
Back on the East Coast, every night of the week you can grab a few innings of a game either on the radio or TV. My AP Biology teacher would determine the difficulty of the weekly quiz depending on how the Yankees were playing.
Maybe because I am older and living in Texas, it seems that attachment to baseball has really disappeared in our society. The biggest sports news is spring football. Kids definitely relate more to Football and Basketball as their players have a lot more marketing dollars behind them. But life is a lot different now then 25 years ago. The pace of a baseball game lingers for hours, and the announcers are trained to spin yarns about games long ago. It ain't Xbox for sure.
But the weather is great. March Madness is a week away. Then, Opening Day. It's uncanny how the calendar rhymes. As I will be telling the story of Exodus at my Seder, I will also tell the story of Game 6 (1986 for you non-Mets fans), if there are any listeners.
Thank you for letting me take a few seconds of your day.
