One spring long ago, our schoolyard was abuzz because Eddie’s big brother had been invited to try out for a major-league baseball team.
I still can’t fathom how he got through the days until his chance at fame and fortune. For me, the wait was excruciating. My mother would urge me to take another bite of lunch even as I bolted out the door. I needed to take a detour to the street where Eddie lived. What if I misheard the date of his brother’s departure, and missed the scene as I imagined it happening?
Out the door would come a future Hall of Famer. Of that we were convinced. He’d be carrying a gym bag containing a fielder’s mitt and spikes, as we called baseball shoes. Or maybe the shoes would dangle by their laces from his shoulder. There was a division of opinion on that detail of our shared fantasy.
I don’t remember how he actually carried his spikes when, nodding to a gaggle of star-struck kids, he walked north on Albany Avenue to catch the Montrose bus. But I can tell you this: In my reveries, Eddie’s big brother has headed north at the start of the baseball season ever since.
I feel sorry for people who think baseball is too slow. They are missing the point.
Yes, the action is interrupted by batters knocking the dirt out of their cleats. If a couple of runners get on base, the manager convenes a meeting on the mound. Latecomers are briefed by teammates covering their mouths with gloves.
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But downtimes on the field serve a purpose. They activate my memory bank. For example, I’ll savor recollections of Phil Cavarretta, who went to the Cubs from Lane Tech High School. As I’m an alum, my subconscious bronzed the story much as parents do a baby’s shoes.
I picture Phil taking his spikes and glove out of a hall locker and walking east on Addison Street straight on to Wrigley Field. On arrival, he’s inserted in the lineup. (Actually, the Cubs briefly seasoned him at a minor-league affiliate before he became their first baseman.)
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Columns are opinion content that reflect the views of the writers.
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The point is, its leisurely pace makes baseball an interactive game. Our cerebellums supply the action when nothing much is happening on the diamond. What other sport has that potential?
Not football. When they switch roles, the defense has 25 seconds to get off the field and the offense to get on the field. In hockey, the action goes on while substitutes jump onto the ice.
Baseball players leisurely trot in and out of the dugouts. Infielders and outfielders play catch before getting down to business. Substitute pitchers get warmup throws, despite having already done that in the bullpen. Knowing he can’t win, a manager corners an umpire to protest a called third strike.
As if by design, fans pass the time mulling over the eternal questions: “What were the Boston Red Sox thinking when they traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees?” “If Sandy Koufax was pitching and Stan Musial was batting, who would you take?”
That theoretical matchup expired with Musial’s 1963 retirement, shortly before Koufax hung up his spikes. But that’s the beauty of a baseball game: It’s a relativistic doubleheader that Einstein could dig. On the field it’s played in real time, while in the alternate universe of a spectator’s mind another one is taking place.
Sadly there are dwindling opportunities for the nostalgia I feel listening to a game on the radio and picturing a scene from my past on an Albany Park street.
That’s where we played lineball, a riff on baseball that broke fewer windows. In that game, the pitcher aimed a tennis ball at a strike zone chalked on the wall. If the batter hit it, he was credited with say, a single or double, depending on where it landed. As that was a judgment call, arguments ensued just as in baseball.
Now, in hopes of speeding up the game, professional baseball’s moguls are considering an electronic arbitrator of balls and strikes. No umpire involved, no time-consuming arguments. I say their deductive chain is missing a logical conclusion: Fewer delays means less time for fans to play my kind of fantasy baseball.
The chorus decrying baseball as too slow has already taken a toll. Relief pitchers are sometimes chauffeured in from the bullpen. They used to walk slowly while the organist played ominous chords.
Now the major leagues are trying out the use of a 15-second pitch clock in some minor league games. No time for shaking off a catcher’s signals, provoking him to come to the mound and ask what’s up.
But as long as baseball broadcasts have commercial breaks, I’ll still have time to wonder what became of Eddie’s brother. I’ll picture him walking north on Albany Avenue, stars in his eyes, spikes slung over his shoulder.