The American Freedom Network

‘Take Time For Paradise’

The late A. Bartlett Giamatti’s book reminds us that there are things in life that are timeless, and that can, and should, be enjoyed regardless of how the world around us turns.  The Yale professor of Renaissance Literature and university president who became Baseball Commissioner wrote of the sublime nature of the joys the game brings to those who love and follow it, play it, and who let its’ rythems weave themselves into the fabric of their lives.

This came to mind the other day as the New York Yankees hosted the Detroit Tigers in the last of their four games there, in the park that replaced the field of Ruth, Gehric Dimaggio and Mantle last year.  Although not “noble and murmurous with history,” as one writer described it, it is “a fitting arena” in which to do what Richard II could not do, and bid time return.  Return, as the game begins anew every day it is played, and return, especially in Yankee Stadium, as the bronze faces in Monument Park watch over the game that evokes, in the action of their pinstriped successors and their opponents in their road greys, their own battles in an age grown ageless in the retelling and remembering of those who witnessed it, whether in person or in their minds, as an announcer’s voice painted a picture of the action, works becoming brushstrokes creating a mosaic in the listener’s memory.  Perhaps some Michiganders will not recall, in later years, the BP Gulf spill or the health care bill battles as much as they will Miguel Cabrerra’s pursuit of a Triple Crown, something only 14 players have accomplished since the 1880s.  As the Tigers’ season has turned to ashes after a spring of unexpected promise that found them in first place, briefly, in early June, Cabrerra continued in the company of the league’s leaders, even as the other RBI lords of the Tigers, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen, went on the disabled list, leaving him almost alone in a lineup that too often went quietly before the slants of opposing pitchers.  Perhaps they’ll remember the strange dominance of Armando Gallaraga over the Cleveland Indians, against whom he pitched what would’ve been, except for what the umpire admitted afterward was a bad call, the first perfect game in Tigers history.  (He got the next batter for the final out, as it happened.)  On his next start against the Tribe, 14 batters went down in order before the spell broke, making 42 consecutive Indians to fall before his right arm on the way to a much-needed victory.

The golden time is timeless, too, in that, unlike other major sports, there is no clock in baseball.  Every game moves at its’ own rhythem, without hurry, although the action may be quick indeed.  Baseball does not demand continuous attention; there is time to get a hot dog and a Coke without having to feel guilty about missing an at-bat or two.  the story picks up when one’s attention returns to it.  Baseball is uniquely suited to radio, as the pace of the action is measured, not statacco, and a listener can attend to other task without losing the flow of the action of the game.

In New York, the mosaic included the four teammates who had led the Yankees to a half-dozen pennants since they came up together in 1995:  Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettit.  Now in the twilight of their careers, they have one more date with destiny, as New York is cruising to a postseason berth, in spite of their rivals of a century, Boston, and the extraordinarily talented upstarts from Tampa Bay.  Their exploits, like those of their opponents wearing the Olde English ‘D,’ will become the stuff of personal legend, something to be talked about decades later, something fathers will tell sons about when they take them to the shrine of their youth, just as their fathers did.  Older generations will compare the stars of today with their memories, interweaving a tapestry of events that becomes the stuff of a common, shared experience.  Words will add to images and narration to vivify those memories into iconic moments of frozen time, part of ‘the good old days’ that everyone recalls and compares to the times we inhabit in the present.  A sportswriter’s words may sum it up, as one did years ago, in describing memories of Mickey Mantle at bat in Yankee Stadium:  ”…filled with clear, still sunlight, pumping an endless succession of baseballs out of sight.”  Such are the memories that knit the years together and give strangers a bond to share in casual conversation when they chance to meet and talk.  (“Remember when Norm Cash grabbed that table leg and tried to use it as a bat when Nolan ryan was throwing that no-hitter in ’73…”)

The names stick with you, too, even those of the bit players who make little impact on the game at large.  Whoever caught Ike Brown’s September homer, the only one he hit after his call-up to Detroit in 1973, probably still has it, and they can probably tell you what inning he hit it in, and off of whom.  Other names, of both the great and mere passers-by in the game, link to yet other memories, whether they be of Skeeter Barnes, Sixto Lezcano, Paul Thormisgaard, Art James, Jamie Quirk or Nook Logan, just as they will in the future for the ones watching Chance Ruffin after he reaches the big leagues.

What makes this important?  the shared happiness that a common experience brings can help those bonded by it look back on troubled times (as ours certainly are) as ‘the good old days.’  They help provide a public square of common experience, a shared set of triumphs and tragedies that bring a sense of unity to people of a particular time and place.  All the upheaval of Chicago’s 1968 may matter less to old-timers on the North Side than the Cubs’ collapse in the late summer of 1969.  (For that matter, it may well be a cherished memory on the South Side, too, where the arch-rival White Sox hold sway.)  The Detroit riots of 1967 left behind a city scarred by racial hostility and mistrust; yet the Tigers’ run to the pennant in 1968 had fans of all races cheering as loudly for Willie Horton’s homers as they did for Mickey Lolich’s strikeouts.

For those of us who share a conservative frame of mind, it is important to remind ourselves that all is not politics, and that all is not political (both defining characteristics of the Left).  The ability to escape to another words, away across the chalk lines that separate the field of play from the the rest of the world, is a gift, and the stuff of memories that will continue to give pleasure and continuity to troubled times.  As the song says, “These are the good old days.”