For more years than I care to remember spring has always been my favorite time of the year. Blooming flowers, green grass and a renewed spirit replace the long, cold winter. Everything is new, fresh and just looks a lot cleaner than it did a couple of months earlier. But the biggest reason I favor spring over any other time of the year, is, well you guessed it, baseball.
I had something else planned for this morning. It was the best article I had ever written. It was full of stats, with charts and nice graphics to prove all of the points I was intent on making. But as I sit here in Arizona, I realized that is not what baseball is all about. And it is not the reason I started watching so intently more than three decades ago. Baseball is more than numbers on a screen, or in a book, it is about a game that I learned as a kid and played until there was not enough light to see the ball. All of the reports and testimony this winter has once again tarnished the game of baseball. If 1994 was not bad enough, we had the displeasure of watching over and over again several of the games greatest names fall further from grace before our very eyes. Where is James Earl Jones when we could use one of his speeches?
These games, exhibitions or not, could not have come fast enough. The general public needs to be reminded baseball is more than reports and testimony, it is the game that has been passed down from generation to generation. If baseball is still not America’s Pastime then why do we care as much as we do?
Before the first pitch is thrown in a few hours, take just a moment out of your busy schedule to remember why you love the game the way you do. I can guarantee you it has nothing to do with a win-loss record or a batting average.