Eternal Baseball

A   L   O   H   A !

Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia 1955

 Prelinger Archives

Dad took me to a game here 
when I was very little.
It looked like a gritty factory from outside,
inside was cement, brick, and exposed girders.
But the emerald green of the field
took my breath away!
Surely it is one memory sight
that I will see again
at the end.

 "A hot dog at the ballgame

beats roast beef 

at the Ritz."

Humphrey Bogart

Philadelphia 1892

" Baseball is almost 

the only orderly thing 

in a very unorderly world.

 If you get three strikes, 

even the best lawyer in the world 

can't get you off. "

Bill Veeck

Out at Home 1905

" Ideally, the umpire should 

combine the integrity of a 

Supreme Court judge, 

the physical agility of an acrobat, 

the endurance of Job 

and the imperturbability of Buddha. "

The Villains in Blue," 

Time magazine, 25 August 1961

Philadelphia Athletics & Boston Red stockings

1875

" This is a game to be savored, 

not gulped. 

There's time to discuss 

everything 

between pitches

 or between innings. "

Bill Veeck

" No game in the world 

is as tidy and 

dramatically neat

 as baseball, with cause 

and effect, 

crime and punishment, 

motive and result, 

so cleanly defined. " 

Paul Gallico

" What is both surprising and delightful 

is that spectators are allowed, and even 

expected, to join in 

the vocal part of the game.... 

There is no reason why the 

field should not try to put the batsman 

off his stroke at the critical moment by 

neatly timed disparagements 

of his wife's fidelity

 and his mother's 

respectability. "

George Bernard Shaw

" I see great things in baseball. 

It's our game — the American game. 

It will take 

our people out-of-doors, 

fill them with oxygen, 

give them a larger physical 

stoicism. . .

and be a blessing to us. "

Walt Whitman

" Baseball is the only sport I know

 that when you're on offense, 

the other team controls the ball. "

Ken Harrelson, 

Sports Illustrated, 6 September 1976

Poets are like baseball pitchers. 

Both have their moments. 

The intervals are 

the tough things. "

Robert Frost

" Say this much for 

big league baseball -

 it is beyond question 

the greatest conversation piece 

ever invented in America. "

Bruce Catton

Link

" Baseball is an allegorical play 

about America, a poetic, 

complex, and subtle play 

of courage, fear, good luck, 

mistakes, patience about fate, 

and sober self-esteem. "

Saul Steinberg

" It breaks your heart. 

It is designed to break your heart. 

The game begins in spring, 

when everything else begins again, 

and it blossoms in the summer, 

filling the afternoons and evenings,

 and then as soon as the chill rains come, 

it stops and leaves you 

to face the fall alone. "

A. Bartlett Giamatti, 

"The Green Fields of the Mind," 

Yale Alumni Magazine, 

November 1977

[]

Baseball is
a predictable series
of unpredictable events.

The pace is majestic
yet peppered with quick action
and reflexes,
like explosions in a 
precise piston
driving motion forward
towards "Home"
Just like the automobile,
and invented in the same era.

Time to absorb the 
ever-changing situation 
is built into the structure
of the game.
Each inning is full of promise.

Guests go to bat first,
but that sportsmanlike rule
means the home team hosts
have the "last say."

Decision of the umpires
is instant and final,
Satisfying in it's finality.
There ARE no unending arguments
on the diamond field.

Baseball is a mental,
even a psychic, game.
Everyone knows
how many Strikes,
how many Outs remain
before the teams
change roles again.
Before exultation
or "next time."

Powerful strive-alries,
exertions to the final 
ounce or farthest reach,
But the staunchest enemies
are both just teams
of baseball players,
of cities and regions
alike. 
Wearing the same caps,
uniforms and cleats,
just in different colors
but playing by 
the same rules
like Life is supposed to be:
Playing-field level,
Each player having 
a chance at bat.

A baseball game
is like a life
with chances to try again.

Private courage plays out
in public display.

Springtime promise,
endless Summer afternoons,
thrilling action under the lights.

The companionable silence
of those closest to us,
as well as those 
we've lost
[but will always remember]

Wreathed in Ballpark buzz,
smells of popcorn, and peanuts,
and beer.
Being part of something bigger,
older 
than your own private benefit;
every neighbor your fellow fan,
the best kind of civic pride
and patriotism,
The game you grew up with.

And for the length of the game
we sit among the generations,
remembering other games,
other Summer days
gone past.

You've been outdoors,
away from work and worries
for a time.
Ar least for the 
length of the game.

Baseball is timeless,
pure as numbers
human as a thrill.

Play Ball!

Dedicated to Dad,
and to Jim Labig

[///]

Inventor of Baseball

Alexander Joy Cartwright, Jr.
 (April 17, 1820 – July 12, 1892)

is buried here in Honolulu!

Read about him HERE

The Eternal Sound of the Ball Park: