Spring 2: Baseball and Weather
BASEBALL AND SPRINGTIME
When I was a child, we sometimes had weather like you experience here in Beigan. I remember one early spring morning when it began to rain as I arrived to school. Next, the cold drizzle turned to snow. Later, I looked out the classroom window as I heard the pounding of baseball-sized hail on the glass. Less than a half an hour later, a rainbow was in the sky as the sun began to shine.
Yes, in the Midwest, one can experience four seasons of weather in a single morning during springtime. This changing weather brings tornadoes and frustration to any picnicking plans one might have.
What I most remember about springtime as a child were opportunities to play sandlot baseball in my neighborhood after school . My dad was a baseball fanatic and so were my neighbors. What do you remember or think about when springtime weather comes your way?
BASEBALL AND POETRY
“I see great things in baseball.” – Walt Whitman
According to the Baseball Almanac, the springtime sport of baseball has spawned a lot of poetry and songs. “Many great men and women have written entire books about every aspect of the game; however, other than ‘Casey at the Bat,’ few know about some of the other great poems that have appeared honoring our national pastime. Here are several that honor the game of baseball.”
eat
I like this one about Nolan Ryan.
Nolan Ryan
by Gene Fehler © Published: Center Field Grasses (1991)
He threw a white pea
fast faster faster fastest
of them all,
Try hitting a pea
with a toothpick
and you’ll see what it’s like
to bat against the
fast faster faster fastest
of them all.
When I was a child, we sometimes had weather like you experience here in Beigan. I remember one early spring morning when it began to rain as I arrived to school. Next, the cold drizzle turned to snow. Later, I looked out the classroom window as I heard the pounding of baseball-sized hail on the glass. Less than a half an hour later, a rainbow was in the sky as the sun began to shine.
Yes, in the Midwest, one can experience four seasons of weather in a single morning during springtime. This changing weather brings tornadoes and frustration to any picnicking plans one might have.
What I most remember about springtime as a child were opportunities to play sandlot baseball in my neighborhood after school . My dad was a baseball fanatic and so were my neighbors. What do you remember or think about when springtime weather comes your way?
BASEBALL AND POETRY
“I see great things in baseball.” – Walt Whitman
According to the Baseball Almanac, the springtime sport of baseball has spawned a lot of poetry and songs. “Many great men and women have written entire books about every aspect of the game; however, other than ‘Casey at the Bat,’ few know about some of the other great poems that have appeared honoring our national pastime. Here are several that honor the game of baseball.”
eat
I like this one about Nolan Ryan.
Nolan Ryan
by Gene Fehler © Published: Center Field Grasses (1991)
He threw a white pea
fast faster faster fastest
of them all,
Try hitting a pea
with a toothpick
and you’ll see what it’s like
to bat against the
fast faster faster fastest
of them all.
posted by Kevin Anthony Stoda at 3:08 PM
1 Comments:
The very last evening this past September, ESPN ran a program entitled THE ENDOURING SPIRIT OF ROBERTO CLEMENTE. That evening program on September 30th commemorated many things about the humanitarian--including the 35th anniversary of the 3000th hit of the Puerto Rican Superstar made by world citizen, Roberto Walker Clemente.
I have several personal memories of Roberto Clemente’s life and death because of the fact my father was a life-long Pittsburgh Pirate fan and I had come to love the elegant playing and hitting of Bobby Clemente during the late sixties and seventies. I’ll share some of those memories below. In the meantime, I want to state that I’m still waiting on Spike Lee or Oliver Stone (or another high caliber director) to do a film on this humanitarian Latin American baseball player and elegant leader of the campaign to integrate baseball with blacks and Latinos in the 1950s and 1960s.
For years the outspoken Latin player failed to get along with much of the American press because he called a spade a spade. He spoke up when he felt racism was at play in how he or any other player was treated—such as in the 1960 MVP campaign where he was voted number eight and behind three other teammates in the year the Pirates took the World Series from the New York Yankees.
Clemente also told the press that he was playing hurt and would go out and get three or four hits or throw out a runner at third base. This led to incredulity by the journalists who in those days expected baseball heroes to be as tough as nails, i.e. to play when they are hurt and to shut up about it. (Having suffered from back and neck pain since I myself was 25 years, I can really empathize with Clemente on the unfair show-us-the-pain type of macho baseball reporting undertaken in the pre-designated hitter era of major league baseball.)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/life_a_alone_071004_roberto_clemente_3a__t.htm
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