"Why We Love Baseball"

       As we approach opening day of the 2010 baseball season, the anticipation builds through spring training as we watch the veterans and rookies try to make rosters across the land.  But where did this love of baseball start for all of us?  It is the American pastime and has been with us longer than any of our other major professional sports.  The seed to follow teams with your head and heart is planted in our early years.   

      My love of baseball started like many, in the local youth baseball league.  Nothing was more exciting than taking the mound to pitch or being in the box at a crucial time in the game with a bat in your hands.  Parents hollering in the bleachers, coaches giving encouraging pep talks and advice, all high drama for most of us.  But nothing cements the love of the game like going to your first professional game.

      At the end of my little league season in 1968, the coaches and a few dads decided to reward our season's work with a trip to Atlanta to see a Braves game.  The Mets were in town to see if the Braves had begun to take root in their new southern home.  Of course that didn't matter to us....Fulton County Stadium was huge and fun was happening all around with hot dogs, foul balls and great souvenirs.

      The seed was planted for a group of young ball players to love this game forever.  You had to pick a team to follow and read all you could about the players.Then be able to argue with your friends about why your team would prevail over any other team with power or pitching or just plain luck.  Fathers and sons bond over baseball.  Especially if they share a favorite team and talk about them after reading the box score in the morning paper.  Relationships are forged by the game.  And relationships will last as long as teams and dads provide us with the love of the game to carry on.