Reflections on Spring Training

Bob's Backstop for February 25, 2004

Well, not really. Not here in Baltimore, anyway. The remnants of the last snowfall finally disappeared this week, leaving behind yards of dormant grass, not fields of verdant green.

Yet, it's spring, all right.

Because Spring Training begins today in earnest, as position players have their first day of workouts.

A time of new beginnings, of slates wiped clean...and also a different sort of rebirth, a rejuvenation of the spirit, as well as the body and mind.

I was hoping to bathe in those magic waters in person again this season, but it appears unlikely at this point. So, I did the next best thing on a rainy, cold evening; I pulled out my photos of my two spring training visits, and closed my eyes.

One of the good things about the Orioles' spring home is its age (not its condition). When you look out at the complex, you know you are looking at a playing field on which many a hope was dashed, and a dream realized. A few thousand dramas have been played out on that field over the years, an endless series of spring auditions by hopeful young players looking to catch someone's eye with a special play or a surprising at-bat.

If you squint hard enough, and let memory pass reality on the base paths, you can see the baseball men of yesteryear, Paul Owens and Tug McGraw, Steve Bechler and Daryl Kyle, Dick Howser and Dan Quisenberry, Pops Stargell and Danny Murtaugh, the managers scanning the tableau unfolding in front of them; the executives and scouts staring into the Florida sun, baseball caps pulled low across wrinkled brows, sunglasses hiding their eyes, taking notes, taking stock; the players on the field relishing the thrill of the grass even as they worry about getting or keeping a place on the club...callow youth, blossoming adulthood, wiser middle-age, the storehouse of aged experiences.

This is a tough time for baseball, for our nation, for our lower- and middle-classes, for our families. There are no easy solutions, no sound bites that will make everything okay, despite the inundation we will receive over our television sets in a presidential year. Viagra won't cure an unhappy relationship, or soothe a male ego damaged by the onslaught of the senior years, and of opportunities missed, relationships neglected. There are no easy answers to the constant turmoil of the world, between nations, ideologies, religions, cultures. Jobs lost overseas will not be replaced by anything more meaningful than service-sector part-time positions. How are we to be hopeful, to live meaningfully through such times?

To live fruitfully in the world, we must look forward, with the slate wiped clean, while pausing also to look back, at the mentors, teachers, friends, family, events that are filled with meaning for us. There are things yet that we can be taught, if we look at all of them with new eyes, new filters, new understanding, new appreciation.

I am often reminded of walking downtown after school one fifth-grade afternoon to pick up my first pair of glasses. I wasn't looking forward to having to wear them, for sure, but I was aware of how difficult it had become to read the blackboard, or to watch television. I noticed the improvement right away when the optician placed them on my face, but it was when I got outside and began my twenty minute walk home that things really came clear to me. Suddenly, I realized that my vision had obviously been deteriorating over time, for I could now see things in vivid detail that had not been part of my experience for a long time. There were leaves on the trees, not just green globs. The clouds had detail; even the very sky itself looked clearer, bluer.

We seldom realize how life's responsibilities, the stress of day to day living, the disappointments and the tragedies, the traumas and the pain, the distances of time and space, can cloud over our once-clear vision, and make things difficult to see any more.

Spring Training is all about new beginnings, and links with the past. For a little while, we can see the game, and life, as we did as a child, with eyes wide open, and clear, mirroring our young hearts. It's up to us to take joy in these moments while we can, and lessons for living, as well. There will be more stories on steroids, and greed, and unfairness, and loss. Heck, I'm going to be the one writing a lot of those stories.

But there is so much richness to the tapestry left for us, no matter how short, or long, our time is remaining on this mortal plane. Though our physical time here is static, we will always be here, as are those who have gone before us. This game, and a lot of the people involved in it, gets into your heart. In allowing it to be thus, we, too, increase our capacity for getting into the hearts of others. There have been many souls that have gotten into my heart over the years, both in sports, and in life. Now that many of them are gone, it is still nigh impossible to get them out of my heart, a situation for which I am quite grateful.

Time erases us all, of course, just as the beach tides wash flat the sturdiest castles. But some special things linger in memory, and if you can still see them - framed in our minds through a place, a song, a kiss, a hug, a word of wisdom, or just the glow of fellowship - then they are still there.

I look forward to the new memories of the 2004 season, just as I treasure the memories of seasons past, that rest in my memory and heart like a watermark...present, but not always visible, until I hold it up to the light. May you find equal joy in it, as well as in your life, in which baseball is but a small, though rewarding, part.

Play Ball!