Marry a Man Who Loves Baseball
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(I was on track for a Father's Day post when I was sidetracked by, what else, baseball. It is not wholly unrelated, I think.)
Marry a man who loves baseball and your life will never be without romance.
I'm 100% biased when it comes to sports. I've gone through my phases, cheered in fair weather and foul, learned the quirks of athletic games of all kinds. For a while in high school and college, I lived and died for the Colorado Avalanche. It's a very long story.
But baseball came to me as it does for so many; on an odd summer day when the breeze fanned just right and the glorious sun lulled my conscious thought into a dream. I think of my husband, who is to me cut of a vintage mold-- both steel and calfskin, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. He holds all the innocence of a proper American boyhood; sandlots and baseball cards, worn leather gloves and hometown heroes. I mean to say that the love of baseball is in his blood, while I came to it much later in my life.
The only one in my family who loves baseball is my maternal grandfather, who managed to bribe us when we were kids into going to the college baseball games with promises of forbidden treats like M and M's and popcorn. I remember two things about those games; running around empty seats with my brothers and wondering how my grandfather could love something so boring.
But I was young then, I say now: Marry a man who loves baseball and your life will never be without romance. Baseball lives and breathes in the proletariat spirit of the American worker (I imagine men from Dodge Ram commercials whose handshakes have not just grit but horsepower, by God!). It is a dusty game, not dirty or muddy, though it often can be, but dusty. As the last snow thaws, we dust off our gloves and bats, we wipes down plastic seats in hibernating ballparks, we take to fields, green or not, and step into the virginal rays of the summer sun and we shake off the dust settled deep in our minds that has made us cold and lonely and fatalistic in the darkness of winter and we feel for the first time; hope.
I cannot think of my husband now without also thinking about baseball; our lives and the theory and reality of the sport are intimately intertwined. Our marriage and friendship has so often become an overplayed metaphor for the diamond-game that it feels necessary to say; if you love someone who loves baseball, you know what I mean.
A man who loves baseball might seem boring, but I say he grasps the nuances of life that we often undervalue. Like a duck on a pond, the stillness is an illusion, for he works and works hard below the surface. He knows more than just stats and jersey numbers, he knows history and personal stories, he understands so poignantly that heartache and failure sweeten the small victories. Better yet, he will recognize the small victories when they come. He is a man of great perspective and patience; it's only June, he says, and you exhale and forget about that damn grand slam. Baseball is a humbling sport and so he will be too, because despite the notches of glory to his name, he can't help but compare himself to heroes past.
You will have a language all your own and when others watch you, yes you will look like idiots, but to hell with them, this is your game. And together you will travel all around the country, your home in him and your home in a great stretch of green that at once pricks at all of your senses; the call for crackerjack, pop of the bat, smell of peanuts, ice cold coke, roar of the crowd, crash at home, seventh inning stretch, and by God those hot dogs that never tasted so good. All of baseball's ghosts will gather at your table like odd relatives with strange names-- Hey Preacher Roe! Tell 'em Uncle Pee Wee-- with stories we all tell and re-tell with our own tint of admiration.
What I love most about baseball, and reflects the way I perceive romance, is that sometimes the moments of pomp and circumstance don't come during championships games or a rivalry match. On just another Wednesday night against just another team, a pitcher might step to the mound and throw a perfect game. I speak of course about Giants pitcher Matt Cain who threw the first perfect game in the franchise's 129 year history. In the same breath that I praise Cain, I salute Blanco's seventh inning catch and Ron Wotus who placed him there, Posey's pitch selection, Bochy's managing (specially putting Arias and Crawford at 3rd and short for better defense), and all the runs scored that night so Matt Cain could focus purely on each at bat. I praise Chelsea Cain as I'm sure Matt heartily does. It was one grand orchestral masterpiece! Maybe it sounds pathetic and a bit cheap if you have no affection for sports, maybe I am just saccharine in my musings. I am.
But my husband and I have that memory to recount over and over as our
hair lightens and we squint harder at the TV and someday when our minds
blur fact and fiction, we will struggle to remember what we saw the day
that Matt Cain threw a perfect game in San Francisco. Wasn't I at
home, screaming at the TV, and you in a warehouse full of men, all
turned to boys with their ears glued to the radio? And wasn't it
glorious?
All that is spoken with the fondness of 'I love you.'
Marry a man who loves baseball and your life will never be without romance.
Happy Father's Day, friends, and I hope you all shared your love with the special men in your lives. See you at the park.
Love,
Kris
P.S. Fellow Giants fans, I have been enamored by the gents over at McCovey Chronicles. There is nothing sexier than well-written baseball coverage, right?
Marry a man who loves baseball and your life will never be without romance.
I'm 100% biased when it comes to sports. I've gone through my phases, cheered in fair weather and foul, learned the quirks of athletic games of all kinds. For a while in high school and college, I lived and died for the Colorado Avalanche. It's a very long story.
But baseball came to me as it does for so many; on an odd summer day when the breeze fanned just right and the glorious sun lulled my conscious thought into a dream. I think of my husband, who is to me cut of a vintage mold-- both steel and calfskin, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. He holds all the innocence of a proper American boyhood; sandlots and baseball cards, worn leather gloves and hometown heroes. I mean to say that the love of baseball is in his blood, while I came to it much later in my life.
The only one in my family who loves baseball is my maternal grandfather, who managed to bribe us when we were kids into going to the college baseball games with promises of forbidden treats like M and M's and popcorn. I remember two things about those games; running around empty seats with my brothers and wondering how my grandfather could love something so boring.
But I was young then, I say now: Marry a man who loves baseball and your life will never be without romance. Baseball lives and breathes in the proletariat spirit of the American worker (I imagine men from Dodge Ram commercials whose handshakes have not just grit but horsepower, by God!). It is a dusty game, not dirty or muddy, though it often can be, but dusty. As the last snow thaws, we dust off our gloves and bats, we wipes down plastic seats in hibernating ballparks, we take to fields, green or not, and step into the virginal rays of the summer sun and we shake off the dust settled deep in our minds that has made us cold and lonely and fatalistic in the darkness of winter and we feel for the first time; hope.
I cannot think of my husband now without also thinking about baseball; our lives and the theory and reality of the sport are intimately intertwined. Our marriage and friendship has so often become an overplayed metaphor for the diamond-game that it feels necessary to say; if you love someone who loves baseball, you know what I mean.
A man who loves baseball might seem boring, but I say he grasps the nuances of life that we often undervalue. Like a duck on a pond, the stillness is an illusion, for he works and works hard below the surface. He knows more than just stats and jersey numbers, he knows history and personal stories, he understands so poignantly that heartache and failure sweeten the small victories. Better yet, he will recognize the small victories when they come. He is a man of great perspective and patience; it's only June, he says, and you exhale and forget about that damn grand slam. Baseball is a humbling sport and so he will be too, because despite the notches of glory to his name, he can't help but compare himself to heroes past.
You will have a language all your own and when others watch you, yes you will look like idiots, but to hell with them, this is your game. And together you will travel all around the country, your home in him and your home in a great stretch of green that at once pricks at all of your senses; the call for crackerjack, pop of the bat, smell of peanuts, ice cold coke, roar of the crowd, crash at home, seventh inning stretch, and by God those hot dogs that never tasted so good. All of baseball's ghosts will gather at your table like odd relatives with strange names-- Hey Preacher Roe! Tell 'em Uncle Pee Wee-- with stories we all tell and re-tell with our own tint of admiration.
What I love most about baseball, and reflects the way I perceive romance, is that sometimes the moments of pomp and circumstance don't come during championships games or a rivalry match. On just another Wednesday night against just another team, a pitcher might step to the mound and throw a perfect game. I speak of course about Giants pitcher Matt Cain who threw the first perfect game in the franchise's 129 year history. In the same breath that I praise Cain, I salute Blanco's seventh inning catch and Ron Wotus who placed him there, Posey's pitch selection, Bochy's managing (specially putting Arias and Crawford at 3rd and short for better defense), and all the runs scored that night so Matt Cain could focus purely on each at bat. I praise Chelsea Cain as I'm sure Matt heartily does. It was one grand orchestral masterpiece! Maybe it sounds pathetic and a bit cheap if you have no affection for sports, maybe I am just saccharine in my musings. I am.
 |
| via NY Daily News |
All that is spoken with the fondness of 'I love you.'
Marry a man who loves baseball and your life will never be without romance.
Happy Father's Day, friends, and I hope you all shared your love with the special men in your lives. See you at the park.
Love,
Kris
P.S. Fellow Giants fans, I have been enamored by the gents over at McCovey Chronicles. There is nothing sexier than well-written baseball coverage, right?
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