Baseball in January?

There is a strange feeling that comes over you after the New Year. Christmas has come and gone, the college and NFL football seasons have all but come to a close and the parties have all gone quiet as we ring in another year. I hope everyone is healthy and safe and that your baseball souls are not in too much pain as we wait now for spring.
For now, it is Hot Stove trade talk, MLB Network giving us our fix of classic baseball and the memories we have of the season just past. All the while we can't help but daydream about the Spring just ahead. The sunny skies over Florida and Arizona. Grapefruit and Cactus are in our thoughts whether we even realize what our subconscious is longing for.
I was excited a couple of weeks ago as I signed my son up for his second season in Little League. Driving home from the sign-up session melancholy took over as I realized just how long we will have to wait for the tryouts to arrive.
Yes it will be awhile but at least we can console ourselves with MLB.com, Classic games on television, ESPN mutterings telling us where our favorite players will be suiting up in 2010 and reading baseball blogs like this one. Yes, it will be awhile but we have one another. Anyone want to take a trip to Mexico to see some winter baseball south of the border? It might just get us by until we here those magical words, "Pitchers and Catchers reported to camp today".

People Will Come Ray, People Will Come.....

I was thinking how cool it is to be able to share my thoughts without worrying about those thoughts being judged. There is an incredible feeling of freedom that comes from it plus the enjoyment I get from the feedback I receive from all of you.

Before long if you read enough of these you'll realize I tend to dwell, a little. How many of you remember the James Earl Jones "Baseball Speech" from the, now, 20 year old film "The Field of Dreams"?

It touches on an incredibly important aspect of Baseball's appeal. Continuity. Something I feel is in grave danger today.

(For Those Who Need a Memory Refreshment)

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

People will come Ray...For reasons they can't even fathom.

They'll walk out to the bleachers and sit in their shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They will find they have reserved seats along one of the baselines.

It will be just like when they were children and cheered their heroes, and they'll watch the game, and it will be as if they were dipped in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they will have to brush them away from their faces...

This field, this game, it's part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

Oh, people will come. People will most definitely come".

W.P. Kinsella, "Field of Dreams"

http://new.wavlist.com/movies/079/fd-speech.wav

The memories I feel when I watch a game today comes from that continuity. When I see something on the field it almost automatically conjures comparisons to plays, players or situations of games I've watched before. With interleague play, the Designated Hitter rule, (From that other league), instant replay and tweaking the homefield in the World Series as a result of the All Star Game outcome all eat away at what always was a pure continuous flow from one decade to the next. This is a rant I will be touching on more in the future as time permits but for now I'll just enjoy the games as they play out and hope it doesn't degrade any further in my lifetime.