Summer is finally coming to an end for me. There’s a month of the World Series playoffs left in the year that will be baseball. It’s been a good year for the sport, regardless of my long standing love for the Cubs. Towards the end of high school and beginning of college, I never gave much thought to the sport. Deep down, I’ve always loved it. I would spend hours upon hours with kids in my neighborhood playing game after game. Paul, Chris, Mark, Brian, Andrew, T.J., Jerry, and other names of kids I can only recall faces and slight memories of.
The park where we used to play across the street is still there, but it has changed a lot. Gone are the dirt bases that were ground into the grass. Home, first, second, third, and even a pitchers mound. A lot of the times, we would have three against four when it came to teams, hauling our gloves and bats on our bikes, BMX or Predator if you were cool enough to own such a pedaling machine. I recall very vividly one of the last few games we played there. With the nearby church parking lot full for some event, some one cranked a hit into “right field”, putting a beautiful spider web decoration into a worshiper’s windshield. I don’t know where everyone went, but we peeled out of there in different directions at light speed.
It’ll be a long time until spring training rolls around, but I’ll manage. After all, I think to be a true baseball fan, you have to be laid back and have a good sense of patience. I’m a Cubs fan. I think I have that nailed down pretty well.