Spring Training is here.
The equipment trucks have made their way through the winters of New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, and into the spring and green grass of Arizona and Florida.
Pitchers and catchers are toeing the freshly painted outfield lines to play a little catch before their morning bullpen sessions. Position players, already at camp because they can’t wait any longer, are breaking out new lumber sent directly from Louisville and taking batting practice on the back fields. Picture that, and try to keep those butterflies out of your stomach. Baseball is back.
The start of the baseball season is unlike any other, isn’t it? When the football preseason starts, it’s an indicator that summer is almost over. When the NBA dives into its preseason games, it means fall is over and winter is upon us. And then there’s baseball. Baseball. The start of spring training lets everyone know that we’re almost there. Sure, Punxsutawney Phil told us there would be an early spring this year. But I’m starting to doubt whether the groundhog has a method to his madness.
While the crack of a big-time football hit is starting to lose its luster as we learn more about the repercussions, the crack of a ball off the bat becomes that much more like Mozart or Beethoven.
After all of the hot-stove chatter about the shifting rosters this winter, we’re finally done with paper talk. We now get to see Jason Heyward play center field for the Cubs. We get to see David Price throw off the mound in a Red Sox uniform. We get to see Justin Upton take hacks behind Miguel Cabrera with the Tigers. It is real.
And the excitement around this season seems bigger than years past, doesn’t it? There are so many story lines, big and small, to follow.
Barry Bonds is the new Marlin hitting coach. The Cubs are projected to have the best record in baseball. The Red Sox are poised to be really good again. Can you even imagine a Cubs-Red Sox World Series? What will the Yankees get out of A-Rod? (OK, some are recurring story lines.) What will the Giants do this year, it being an even year and all? How many teammates will Jonathan Papelbon choke slam? We. Just. Don’t. Know. And that is what makes baseball so exciting.
Baseball. It is an art. It is the hum of the crowd, it is the chatter on the field, it is poetry in motion. And it is back.
In case that doesn’t make you want to get in the car and drive to Arizona or Florida, James Earl Jones may have said it best in Field of Dreams.
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”