OK, all you heartbroken baseball fans--because I post this every year.

[Shakespeare]

A little balm for the baseball soul:

From A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti
by A. Bartlett Giamatti, et al
"The Green Fields of the Mind "

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the 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. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone.

click on the link and keep reading; it's probably the greatest essay ever written on that beloved sport.

http://mason.gmu.edu/~rmatz/giamatti.html

[Missy Vixen]

1. Springtime will come again

and we'll hear some of the more beautiful words in the English language: "Pitchers and catchers report".

Julie

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. Damn it

I wrote a poem a few years ago called "Pitchers and Catchers Report." It was based on Franklin P. Adams' "Baseball's Sad Lexicon," a.k.a. "Tinker to Evers to Chance."

Unfortunately, I wrote it on the computer where I worked then, and I didn't save a copy. :banghead:

[reyd reid reed]

6. Yeah. I know.

*tap, tap, tap*


:spank::spank::spank:

[deadparrot]

3. Very true.

There's nothing quite like Opening Day, at least in my experience. There's just an atmosphere about it. You're on the brink of summer, kids and adults take the day off school and work, and you settle down to that slow pace of the game. I miss it already, and the season isn't even over yet.

For all that baseball is considered a "summer sport," it's offseason is really very short. It's almost November by the time the Series wraps up, and spring training starts in mid-February. Time flies when you add the rush of the holiday season to the mix.

And me? I'm listening to "We Are The Champions" tonight, because I don't think I'm going to have another chance this season. But I'm a happy Cardinals fan tonight nevertheless. :)

[Shakespeare]

4. Friday kick. n/t

[MrCoffee]

5. This should be required reading.

[reyd reid reed]

7. Every time I read this

I get chills and a lump in my throat...

[Bake]

8. HOW 'BOUT THEM CARDS, BAYBEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Yeah!! Detroit, here we come!

Bake