The History of Baseball

I am a baseball fanatic. It may seem strange that someone who operates a nightlife and wine business would be so involved with baseball. The truth about baseball is we can never be sure who will be passionate about the game. It is something that attaches to us in our youth and won't ever let go. Of course we never want it to let go because it offers comfort and is one of the very few constants in life.

I have been passionate about baseball as long as I can remember. I even hope to become more involved in the business of baseball in the future. I have taken classes on baseball's long and storied history and spent countless hours since my boyhood studying every imaginable statistic.

I start watching with the first pitch of spring and end with the last pitch of the World Series on a yearly basis. This year we were lucky enough to witness an extra treat with the World Baseball Classic that reminds us that baseball is no longer just America's Game, but it is a worldwide phenomenon. Baseball has been growing and by all indications will continue to grow worldwide in the future. Japan repeated at the World Baseball Classic, and while the USA team was much improved, their WBC still ended in bitter disappointment. The Netherlands were the surprise team upsetting the Dominican team, not once but twice. It shows that heart, desire, and a little bit of luck sometimes triumphs over talent and a large payroll.

Speaking of large payroll--The Yankees are my favorite team. My baseball world circumnavigates around the Yankees every season. I used to get small season ticket packages and make the time and the money happen. I have been fortunate to always luck out with tickets, partially because I am not opposed to buying only one ticket and going to the ballpark alone. It is much easier to get one ticket. I have seen great playoff games this way I would never have gotten into trying for two seats. I always seem to make plenty of friends at the ballpark once I find my seat. I am not opposed to going with friends and often go in small groups of friends. This is what is great about baseball it can be enjoyed either way. Since, I have been doing research in the South I have yet to really see New Yankee Stadium. I am excited to go and experience it for myself, but I am saddened at the loss of any old stadium, let alone Yankee Stadium, which as meant so much to me and harbored so many fond memories.

One of the great things about being in the South or any more rural region is the abundance of minor league baseball. Small size cities are really large towns, but there is something pure in minor league baseball as you know the players are either there purely for the love of the game, or are career minor league players and are in every sense of the word "professional", or they are too young to be spoiled by the excess, or are too old and just can't or don't want to give up what they have known their entire life.

I understand not wanting to give it up. Last year I found myself teaching my niece to play softball for the first time, and I was playing on the hillsides of my farm. At the same time I was studying the history of baseball and preparing for a class I was taking on the subject as part of an additional degree program. I read about how people played in the early days of the game, in hillsides and pastures, on uneven ground, with makeshift balls and bats--but that is not all it was also played in urban centers and pickup games of various fluidity that sometimes resembled our game and sometimes not so much as the rules often changed with early variations. I have been thinking of joining a team again, I always could hit just about anything thrown at me. I was always patient and had a high on base average and batting average. When I was younger I had great speed. My fielding needed some work, but I think I was somewhat like Paul O'Neil and I would imagine myself at the plate even though I was supposed to be running down fly balls. I think I would make a switch to first base if I were to play again, this way I would keep in the game while playing the field. I haven't been able to locate a team close enough to where I am currently, but maybe in the next year I will be somewhere else.

Baseball is both rural pastoral as well as urban. Baseball can be all things, it contains all the elements of human drama, the ups and downs over a long season and there is after all a finality to it that is a reflection of life. Towards the end all we have is the memories, but the memories linger on and on forever.


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