Baseball

There are few things more holy to a summer than a baseball game. I attended my first Twins game recently at the widely heralded (deservedly) brand spanking new Target Field. While I remain firm in my belief, rooted in a childhood dedicated to the Cardinals and their Arkansas farm team, that the National League is far superior to the "fake baseball" attempted by the AL, I can give credit where credit is due for a good game. I attended with a fellow baseball-lover (I should say "fake baseball"-lover since he's a Twins fan but since he provided the tickets, I'll overlook that flaw) and I don't think there's anything better on a sunny afternoon than a mild tshirt-shaped sunburn, good company, and a homerun to cheer for.

I bought a scorecard as soon as we entered and enjoyed relearning all the chickenscratches my Dad taught me as a girl. There's a certain satisfaction from that backwards K (called strikeout) and the filled in black diamond of a homerun. I also like the 6-4-3 of the double play. My favorite position in softball was shortstop, and I liked owning that "6."

On Saturday I'm headed to a Saints game, the minor league team in St. Paul that boasts $5 tickets, burn-your-ass metal bleachers, and a pig mascot that runs around the field at will. It's very different from the major league experience, but honestly, save a Cardinals game in my former hometown, I much prefer the minor league feel. It reminds me more of the first baseball games of growing up, the ones spent at Ray Winderfield Field (only a handful of people will notice that childish mistake), hot dogs and mosquitos, crowd cheering for Geronimoooooooo Pennnnnna. Those are the games that spell B-A-S-E-B-A-L-L in my heart. The Saints games remind me of those hot, Arkansas evenings, even if the Minnesota sun is significantly kinder than those Southern scorchers.

I think, too, that a baseball fan is simply more my sort of human than other sports fans. Football can be fun to watch, and I admit to getting jazzed for New Orleans this past February. But my affection for football is fleeting, and only emotionally tied to the handful of my kid brother's games I caught while he was in high school. I've never cared about basketball (an apathy born of one miserable season spent "playing" basketball in middle school when I would sob for an hour before practice because I loathed it so much).

Baseball. Now that is a sport worth loving. A slow one at times, to be sure, steeped in decades and decades of history, generations of rivalries, old wounds, underdogs, and the smell of dirt and chalk and soft, sweaty leather. Baseball fans are fervent but they're also patient. Football is over in a blink, barely a dozen games to sink your teeth into. Baseball requires weeks, months of dedication. An exhaustion of sweeps and death spirals, records to break, pulled tendons, perfect games, rainouts, games ahead, games behind. I respect that slowness. And I respect the fan that settles in for the long haul in April, the promise of sun and a homerun peeking through springtime's clouds.

Mid-July is prime baseball season. Squinting against the glare, the near-scream of joy for the nearly-fair nearly-homerun, the smell of bug spray and beer and mustard. It's a specific slice of the year, before the smell of autumn creeps across the grass and forces the acknowledgment of other seasons. I love that slow creep of darkness, when the outfield lights buzz on, love the sugary promise of cotton candy, and the way my ponytail dissolves in a cascade of sweaty strings after I jump up too many times to cheer. I just love it.

Swing away!