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When I was a kid, the words "baseball game" were filled with promise. To go to the ballpark was to spend an entire day living another life. The food itself made you believe you were on vacation.
There was always that first inning hot dog. You couldn't really feel like you were part of the game until you had had a hot dog, loaded up with all your favorite condiments. Somewhere around the third inning, you felt a hunger for popcorn, and not long after that, the guy in front of you returned to his seat with a monster soft pretzel, making you turn to your dad with puppy dog eyes and, "I'm starving." By the seventh inning stretch, you've also had peanuts, cotton candy, and an ice cream cone. You'd seen your dad pop a couple of Tums tablets, but you weren't sure why; you were ready for another hot dog.
You knew the names of every player on your favorite team, and many on other teams. You didn't just have a favorite team, you also had favorite rivals: those teams you most enjoyed watching your team play against. They weren't your favorite because they were easiest to beat, either; they were your favorite because they gave your team a run for their money, and you got to watch an exciting game in which your team needed you to cheer for them. The fans would get fired up, and the closer it got, the louder everyone yelled their encouragements. Your favorite pitcher was always pitching the day you were at the park, and your favorite players always had great hits, steals, double-plays, and pick-offs. When your all-time favorite player hit a record homerun for the season, you were so excited that everyone would have thought it was you who had hit the homerun.
Baseball was exciting.
And you were right in the middle of it.
When I was thirteen, my mom called me at school one day in the spring. My dad had been given four baseball tickets from a guy at work, and my mom wanted to know if my brother and I wanted to leave school and go to the game with him. I answered for myself and my brother without thinking twice. School not withstanding, who would pass up a baseball game? My dad picked up my younger brother who was still at home, then my brother and me from school. Before we had even gotten to the park, school and friends and teachers were a galaxy away. "The Baseball Game" was all that existed.
The strike of 1994 stole some of the magic from the ballpark. The game hasn't been the same since. Sure, you can still take your kids there and have a great family day. You still have your favorite team and you still enjoy the game. You even still have a taste for that bag of peanutes in the third inning. But does it feel as magical as it did 15 years ago? Not quite. Do your kids feel the same enchantment you did at their age? Probably not. Greed and selfishness somehow have a way of killing the magic intrinsic to the game.
I still make it policy to go to the ballpark at least a few times a year. I have very few favorite players anymore, but I do still have "my team" whom I follow throughout the season, and it is still fun to watch them play. The food is still decent, and if the weather is right, I can conjur up enough of one of "the old days" in my imagination to forget that both prices and player salaries have increased dramatically.
If I sit back in my seat with my husband on one side of me and my son on other and enjoy my pepsi and the bag of peanuts we are sharing, the sun shines down on us and the breeze blows through our hair, and I can still enjoy the game as an adult as much as I enjoyed it as a child.
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