It starts with a plastic bat and a wiffle ball in a backyard that somehow always feels like Yankee stadium. The sound of the ball hitting the bat makes you smile, the smell of fresh cut grass, the echo of a glove pop, the laughter, the magic.
Then it’s T-ball, jerseys, and hats too big. No one knows which way to run and nobody cares because you’re out there with your team. As you grow, so does the game. The fields get bigger, the lights get brighter, you start to understand the game. The grind of greatness being achieved while failing the majority of the time.
With high school comes the love and heartbreak of the game. The memories of moments seized and the ones that fluttered by your outstretched glove. The walk off hit or the perfect at bat fighting off foul ball after foul ball. The strike out. OH, the one you wish you had another shot at. The game, the season, the career ending strikeout.
Baseball is right, the rules, the umpires, the coaches and players not perfect. But always the right metaphor for life. It’s about showing up, trying again and again. About knowing after your worst day, you get another chance. Once in a while you see the spark, if you have seen it, you know it. It’s like a shooting star or a perfect rainbow, it may only last an instant but in that moment Baseball is right.
By Sean Fogarty
