Yeah...I Held My Glove To My Face
I clicked quickly to another station as the radio in my car announced that my Oakland Athletics had been swept by the Detroit Tigers. In two games they were utterly dominated, in two others they had teased me. They led me to believe that the sweet smell of victory was in the air.It was not to be...
Baseball is my favorite of all the American sports. Yes, I love the Chicago Bears and I do get excited when the Lakers played beyond their talent in last year's playoffs. I even root for the Sharks, although it is primarily through looking at the results on-line. But nothing beats baseball.
As I posted before (check out Moe, Romulans And Soccer), I was good in two sports, soccer and baseball. They were the two sports my parents signed me up for. Fall was the time for soccer, but Spring and early Summer it was baseball.
You will see many grown men wax poetic when speaking about baseball. I loved in Field Of Dreams when Ray Liotta's character, Shoeless Joe Jackson, reminisces about baseball, "Man, I did love this game. I'd have played for food money. It was the game... The sounds, the smells. Did you ever hold a ball or glove to your face?"
Yeah, I remember holding my glove to my face. Inhaling deeply the scent of the soft leather that was made subtle by the leather lotion my dad gave me. He taught me how to make my stiff glove perfect. I remember the smell of the grass as we played in the warm afternoon sun. How the dust permeated my nostrils when diving for a grounder towards my position at second base. I remember one of the parents offering me $10 if I got a hit in the ninth inning of the championship game. The last game of my Little League career.
Yeah...I held my glove to my face.
There was a scene in City Slickers where many of the men were sitting around discussing baseball and Helen Slater's character complains that she didn't understand what the big deal was about baseball. Phil, Daniel Stern, responds that when his dad and he were not getting along, that they always had baseball. That they could always discuss baseball.
I have become closer to my father as I have matured and although we discuss many things, it always seems that we can always find our way to the A's. I still remember my dad rolling the television into the kitchen so we could watch the A's take on the Giants in the 1989 World Series.The A's...whether it was the prospect of a new ballpark in Fremont or whether Huston Street was a good closer...we always had something to talk about.
If there is one team that Brandon was concerned about, it was the Oakland A's. I have never been one to push my kids into sports, rather I prefer to encourage. However, for whatever reason, he seemed to have locked onto the Oakland Athletics. For B-boy-deluxe, it was never just the A's. Very deliberately, he would ask if the Oakland Athletics are on television.
We would actually sit on the couch and watch for several innings as the players flashed about the diamond. Munching on Goldfish we would watch as the Big Hurt would take tremendous swings sending the ball hurtling towards the left field bleachers. Brandon would ask how many "points" did the Oakland A's have. I would correct him and tell him, "It's runs Brandon...they're called runs."
So I quickly switched the radio station. With sadness I realized the A's had ended their great season of 2006. Time moves on. My dad, Brandon and I would need to wait until the new flowers of Spring begin to appear for our beloved Oakland A's to again hit the field. I can't wait!
posted by LoneCactus @ 9:19 PM
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