Baseball. It’s in my blood.
When the last confetti falls on the World Series champions every autumn, I feel like the Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby: “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”
Spring, however, came late this year, courtesy of COVID-19. Major League Baseball shut down their Florida and Arizona training facilities, with no idea when cleats, helmets and hot dog launchers would ever return.
Bereft of the national pastime, I turned to the next best thing: Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary. After all 20 hours of the masterpiece, taking in the heroics of Mathewson, Mantle, McGraw and Maddux, I turned to watching live Korean baseball on YouTube to sate my hunger. The names on the jerseys were different, but the game was familiar.
Soon, though, I began hearing whispers in the dark: the MLB is coming back. Sixty games. No fans in the stands.
My joy of listening to radio baseball while chopping onions or dusting bookshelves was tempered with the reality of the pandemic. By listening to these games, was I contributing to the narrative that these sports contests and the players on the field are “essential,” and thus baseball is required to continue, to the point where these athletes possibly put at risk their own lives or lives of their loved ones?
Never mind the opt-out players could exercise — it still didn’t feel comfortable paying attention to this season, when other matters seem way more important right now in this nation.
It was a conversation with my aunt which eased my mind. She’s a Yankees fan in North Jersey, I’m a Phillies fan in South Jersey — we don’t talk about 2009. But we share the love of the game. At the beginning of this abbreviated season, I called her to catch up, and we spent time sharing our hopes and concerns. Would the league actually be able to go through its entire schedule? How will players perform after being shut down for four months?
At the end of our conversation, when I expressed to her my uncertainty for this entire season we’re living through, baseball and otherwise, she said three words: “Just enjoy it.”
That’s the key, I realized. Enjoy baseball. Enjoy the moment.
Easier said than done, I know. But Jesus tells us to “not be anxious about tomorrow” (Mt 6:34), but to trust him and his works. Even among this sickness and sadness these past few months, I must believe that the Lord is “doing a new thing” and making “a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Is 43:18-19).
I also found words of comfort while re-reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, in between the dulcet words of baseball announcers.
Before writing his classic, Tolkien had experienced the nightmare of World War I, as a lieutenant in the British Army. Here, his closest school friends fighting alongside him were killed in battle, and he experienced trench fever.
In the battle for Middle Earth in “Lord of the Rings,” he wrote of the uncertainty his own characters had for the fight ahead:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
I’ll decide to listen to baseball, and enjoy this life built on hope and faith, and pray that all Major League players and staff, and their loved ones, stay safe and healthy.
That sentiment extends to all of you, readers. Be well!
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