6: Waiting for the music to begin again

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by ssiscribe

ATLANTA – The ballpark on the corner of Hank Aaron and Ralph David Abernathy stands quiet for now. An occasional gathering of show cars will congregate in one of its parking lots from time to time on weekends. On holidays, Atlanta’s homeless come here to be fed and shown they truly are not forgotten.

 

Otherwise, all is calm at the Home of the Braves.

 

Driving past on the Downtown Connector Sunday afternoon, heading into the city with my best girl to wrap up our Christmas shopping, I cast my eyes toward Turner Field, its third-base side running parallel to Interstate 75/85.

 

“I want to sit on that side more this season,” my bride said, recalling the final game we attended in 2007 and how she loved sitting along the third-base side of the field, where she could look inside the Braves’ dugout.

 

(One may opine it’s a way for her not to lose sight of the strapping young first baseman who may or may not open 2009 in the same place he opens 2008. Let’s hope she’s staring at him in a Braves uniform for years to come.)

 

It’s moments like this, as the December winds usher in its frostiness, where I miss baseball the most. The ebb and flow of the sport’s day-in, day-out action becomes a backbeat to our daily existence, and it’s a bit lonely when November, December and January come to call.

 

But then we reach February, and it begins anew. It starts with a distant drumbeat, reverberating from ports of call far to the south, from Lakeland and Clearwater and Jupiter and, of course, the palace at Mickey’s Place, aka The Ballpark at Disney. It builds its steady crescendo with reports a plenty, news of this prospect and that newcomer, of this rehabbing star and that veteran contributor. It climbs until the symbols clash, the trumpets blare and, against the backdrop of red, white and blue bunting, Opening Day arrives with all the pomp and circumstance fit for a king.

 

Baseball is back; long live the king.

 

From there, the rhythm continues through spring and summer, through week-long homestands and West Coast road trips. Some days, the drums beat at a frantic pace, as the team rallies for late-inning victories, the starters dominate, the relievers throw pure gas and the stars pound out homers and doubles and clutch hits. Other days, the music slows, as the starters can’t escape the fifth inning, the relievers can’t hold the lead, the offense sputters and the manager adds to his “record” of seeing the clubhouse (or, to be factual, the hallway leading from dugout to clubhouse) before the final pitch is delivered.

 

Before you know it, September arrives. The playoff push is on for still most everybody in this day and age of the wild card. The days fly off the calendar, the drama builds, the music rises in volume until we reach Game No. 162. And then, for all but eight fortunate teams and their legions of fans, it’s over. Winter comes early; curses, foiled again.

 

We watch the Elite Eight battle it out during the next month. Postseason memories are added to our scrapbook, the heroes of autumn etched alongside Mazeroski and Fisk and Reggie and Gibson and Morris and Cabrera and Glavine and Jeter and Beckett and a hundred other names whose exploits when the music played at its grandest and the spotlight glared at its brightest will keep us warm for years to come.

 

Then, it ends. One team takes home the trophy, its fan base awash for all of time in the glory of residing – even if for just one year – in the hall of champions. But even the euphoria of winning the World Series cannot keep the cold Arctic winds from plunging south. The leaves fade and fall. The music goes silent. Baseball is gone, off into its winter hibernation.

 

And we find ourselves on a cold December afternoon driving past the place where grown men play a kid’s game, and we find ourselves longing for warm sunshine, the National Anthem, the sound of “play ball” and the return of baseball’s rhythm. On this, the coldest morning of the year along the southern rim of the capital city, how I long to see nine men in white uniforms standing on the green grass and brown dirt of my hometown ballpark. How I miss baseball so on mornings where the fingers don’t want to do their dance across the keyboard, where even the third cup of coffee fails to warm the body, where the slightest gust of wind makes me wonder if it ever will warm above 50 degrees.

 

But it will. The temperature will rise. The days will get longer. We will celebrate Christmas and the birth of our glorious Savior, taking delight with the fact our children know the real reason for this magical season. We also smile in thinking of the T-ball bat under the tree for one son, the baseball glove under the tree for the other one. We know it won’t be long until the backyard is filled with the sounds of summer, even if the calendar says spring has yet to arrive.

 

And in time, spring will be here. It will be time for the music to play its annual song yet again, and we’ll tap our feet to its rhythm as baseball takes us on another journey through another season. This grand ol’ game, for all its flaws and self-inflicted wounds, continues its march. And we, those who love it so, sing right along.

 

The Scribe abides.

 

–30–

 

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