Over the next month or two, stories about spring training will sprout up across the nation like grass on a freshly manicured Florida diamond.
Professional writers like Jayson Stark and Bill Gammons, as well as amateur bloggers and writers like me will begin to pen stories about the true meaning of spring training.
With eloquence, terms like "spring cathedrals" and "memories of my youth" will begin to dot the landscape of baseball blogs and magazines of every make and manner. Craftily worded metaphors will connect baseball to all things right and righteous.
Concepts like patriotism and a strong work ethic will flap in the breeze of their pleasant prose. Word-pictures will tell the stories of both the grizzled veteran sweating off his winter fat as well as the chiseled youngster with an ego as vast and as deep as his untapped potential.
We will read these stories and they will make us smile, because they will reflect memories of our childhood, a kind of "Field of Dreams" flashback but with real players and real fields and embedded dreams from our youth.
And like in the movie, the promise of "If you build it, he will come" still rings true.
For they built it. And I went.
I left Washington D.C. a half-decade after my beloved Senators did. Washington just didn't seem the same after RFK went dark during the city's hot, humid nights. True, George Allen and his Redskins electrified the city during those years, but their success made the summer silence all the more deafening.
I lived a few years in Denver and watched The Denver Bears play at Mile High Stadium. One night, their second baseman, 35 and old for the American Association, was given an award at home plate. He had just graduated from law school. When the master of ceremonies asked the player what was next on his horizon, he replied that he'd like to manage in the big leagues one day.
His name was Tony LaRussa.
I joined the Air Force in the late 1970's and spent my first tour-of-duty in Japan, and learned that baseball was indeed a universal language. I saw Sadaharu Oh drive a ball deep over the right field fence at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo and was amazed that his stance, and his uniform, mirrored that of Mel Ott and the New York Giants from decades long forgotten.
In the early 1980's, I saw Carl Yaztremksi play at Fenway Park, Carlton Fisk squat behind the plate at Comisky Park, and watched a woeful Mariners' team draw but a handful of fans to the Kingdome that was as cavernous as it was ugly. Kirk Gibson impressed me as he roamed the outfield at Tiger Stadium, covering the same turf that Al Kaline once called home.
While visiting my aunt in Birmingham, I had the chance to take in a game or two at historic Rickwood Field, where I saw a young outfielder slam without question the longest home run I have ever seen in person.
Reggie Jackson hit a lot of those, didn't he?
5 comments Last one added 6 months ago — Leave a Comment
Kathleen Manning 6 months ago
This is fantastically written. I am going to spring training for the first time in March (Jupiter, FL to see the Cards) and your eloquently written piece has inspired me. I hope to come away with the same kind of memories that you have.
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Farid Rushdi 6 months ago
Thank you so much Kathleen.
It's easy to write about something that is close to you.
I appreciate your kind words.
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Dylan Sharek 6 months ago
Farid,
This is the best piece of writing that I have seen on this site. Send it to Baseball America, the Sporting News, MLB.com, ESPN.com or Sports Illustrated. I am not flattering you; it is simply that good.
It really is easier to write about something that is close to you or something that means so much to you that no matter how long ago it happened, you can still feel it viscerally. And I can tell that you feel that way for Spring Training. You conveyed so much in this piece that I am inspired. I'm inspired to write like you did. I'm inspired to treat my baseball memories with the same passion and importance.
Thank you for writing this. I have a feeling only like 100 people will read it (and 1,000 will read a piece of shit article on Milton Bradley), but the ones that have are enlightened.
Feel free to check out my stuff.
Thanks again,
Dylan
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Farid Rushdi 6 months ago
I'm blushing Dylan, thank you.
You're right, a hundred or so people will read this story. I wrote one about Mark Teixiera two weeks ago and it hit 1,000 on the first day.
But that's okay.
I wrote this out of love for the game, not to be read and forgotten by someone with not enough time to digest it.
And if I touched one person, the effort was worth the time it took.
That you were the one makes me feel proud.
Thank you again.
Farid
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Paul Sievers 6 months ago
Thank you for reminding me why I love baseball.
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