Diamond Existentialism
There are people who wax poetically about the springtime and baseball, about how it is a time of hope and renewal and optimism. To them, spring is a time of limitless possibilities and endless horizons where the sky is the limit.
Have I hit my cliché quota yet? I hope so. To me, spring is a time when the weather gets a bit warmer and I can spend more time outside watching entertainment than inside. Still, I my curmudgeon’s heart will grudgingly admit that there are certain comforts in the seasonal cycle. Certain patterns that emerge that re-educate you about how life really is for most people.
Last Saturday the Mrs. and I made a spur of the moment decision to head over to see the Newark Bears for our first ballgame of the season. The Bears are part of the Atlantic League which is an independent league meaning that all the ball clubs have no affiliation with major league clubs and the rosters are composed of youngsters hoping to get signed and start on the way up, slightly older guys whose career hit a plateau in the high minor leagues and are trying to catch on and older career minor leaguers and ex-major leaguers on the way down who are still holding on to the dream. As someone who once attended a lot of affiliated ballgames before my local squad starting charging absurd prices for A ball that middle category is particularly interesting to me right now. The Bears did not let me down as they acquired one-time Yankees hot shot prospect John-Ford Griffin for the current campaign. Griffin spent a summer with the local single A Yankees affiliate back when we were regulars so it was interesting to see him back in the area.
Griffin started the game in left field for the Bears and did not factor in any plays in the top of the first or second innings. In the bottom of the second he stepped to the plate and I actually had one of those springtime renewal moments: there we were again in our familiar places – he in the left hand batters box, me in a seat behind the plate with beer in hand still vaguely wallowing in a pool of life’s general discontent. The seasonal rhythm caught me at that moment and I took a pull on the disappointing suds offering the Bears are serving this year and once again considered that this was what life is; few succeed, many fail so have the best time of it that you can.
Three pitches later that train of thought was broken as ol’ JFG took one for the team. On right elbow, specifically. Done for the night. So much for that.
The evening’s existential entertainment was not over yet, however. In the middle of the fourth inning I had the honor of seeing a young male get a lesson in what life is really all about. Said young male was around ten or so I would guess and he was participating in an on-field between innings contest that was essentially musical chairs done in a Mexican hat dance-like fashion where the objective was to snatch up a sombrero when the music stopped rather than to sit down in a chair. There were three kids, the male in question, a very young blonde girl (5 or 6 years old maybe) and another boy who was between the ages of his two competitors. The music stops for the first time and the two boys snatch up the two hats (in musical chairs-type games you always have one less object than you do people, that’s how people get eliminated). Too late the very young blonde girl grabs on to the hat held by the oldest boy. Well, that very next minute was almost certainly a transformative moment in that boy’s life because the on field coordinator snatched the sombrero out of his hands and handed it to the little girl saying “No Chandler, I think Elizabeth here got the hat first. You go stand over there.” Chandler stood there dumbfounded for a second and then obediently did what he was told. In the next round, the other boy got the hat ahead of Elizabeth and was allowed to claim the victory.
What a moment, eh friends? What do they call that in edu-speak? A “teachable moment”? As the great Jean Shepherd used to say, “There’s education and then there’s education” Our friend Chandler got an education there, didn’t he? You could almost imagine him saying “Well fine, if they wanted to rig it so the little girl won OK, but why screw me and then have her lose in the finals? What kind of sense does that make? What kind of cruel world is this? I just got jobbed for no reason! “
Welcome to the world, Chandler. You’ve taken your first step toward being a grownup. Education and education. You won’t learn that lesson in any book. At least not in any book they’ll give you in school.
Have I hit my cliché quota yet? I hope so. To me, spring is a time when the weather gets a bit warmer and I can spend more time outside watching entertainment than inside. Still, I my curmudgeon’s heart will grudgingly admit that there are certain comforts in the seasonal cycle. Certain patterns that emerge that re-educate you about how life really is for most people.
Last Saturday the Mrs. and I made a spur of the moment decision to head over to see the Newark Bears for our first ballgame of the season. The Bears are part of the Atlantic League which is an independent league meaning that all the ball clubs have no affiliation with major league clubs and the rosters are composed of youngsters hoping to get signed and start on the way up, slightly older guys whose career hit a plateau in the high minor leagues and are trying to catch on and older career minor leaguers and ex-major leaguers on the way down who are still holding on to the dream. As someone who once attended a lot of affiliated ballgames before my local squad starting charging absurd prices for A ball that middle category is particularly interesting to me right now. The Bears did not let me down as they acquired one-time Yankees hot shot prospect John-Ford Griffin for the current campaign. Griffin spent a summer with the local single A Yankees affiliate back when we were regulars so it was interesting to see him back in the area.
Griffin started the game in left field for the Bears and did not factor in any plays in the top of the first or second innings. In the bottom of the second he stepped to the plate and I actually had one of those springtime renewal moments: there we were again in our familiar places – he in the left hand batters box, me in a seat behind the plate with beer in hand still vaguely wallowing in a pool of life’s general discontent. The seasonal rhythm caught me at that moment and I took a pull on the disappointing suds offering the Bears are serving this year and once again considered that this was what life is; few succeed, many fail so have the best time of it that you can.
Three pitches later that train of thought was broken as ol’ JFG took one for the team. On right elbow, specifically. Done for the night. So much for that.
The evening’s existential entertainment was not over yet, however. In the middle of the fourth inning I had the honor of seeing a young male get a lesson in what life is really all about. Said young male was around ten or so I would guess and he was participating in an on-field between innings contest that was essentially musical chairs done in a Mexican hat dance-like fashion where the objective was to snatch up a sombrero when the music stopped rather than to sit down in a chair. There were three kids, the male in question, a very young blonde girl (5 or 6 years old maybe) and another boy who was between the ages of his two competitors. The music stops for the first time and the two boys snatch up the two hats (in musical chairs-type games you always have one less object than you do people, that’s how people get eliminated). Too late the very young blonde girl grabs on to the hat held by the oldest boy. Well, that very next minute was almost certainly a transformative moment in that boy’s life because the on field coordinator snatched the sombrero out of his hands and handed it to the little girl saying “No Chandler, I think Elizabeth here got the hat first. You go stand over there.” Chandler stood there dumbfounded for a second and then obediently did what he was told. In the next round, the other boy got the hat ahead of Elizabeth and was allowed to claim the victory.
What a moment, eh friends? What do they call that in edu-speak? A “teachable moment”? As the great Jean Shepherd used to say, “There’s education and then there’s education” Our friend Chandler got an education there, didn’t he? You could almost imagine him saying “Well fine, if they wanted to rig it so the little girl won OK, but why screw me and then have her lose in the finals? What kind of sense does that make? What kind of cruel world is this? I just got jobbed for no reason! “
Welcome to the world, Chandler. You’ve taken your first step toward being a grownup. Education and education. You won’t learn that lesson in any book. At least not in any book they’ll give you in school.
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