October & Baseball

For baseball fans, no time of the year is better than October when the playoffs and World Series roll around. This year, I am forced to watch simply as a fan of the game. My team, the Twins, failed to make postseason play. So, as I sit and enjoy the charged atmosphere evident in a few stadiums across the country, I wonder just what it is about a game, baseball, that has had the ability to make the game so popular for fans from all walks of life for so long.

I find, again, that baseball is just another segment of American life where Americans learn something about those things that make them all alike as a people. The game, for example has not always been at once fair and open to all fans, players, owners, etc. Generally speaking, however, the game of baseball has reflected something about the potential for hard workers to make it in America. Consider the way we fans of the game celebrate the story of a youngster, or even a seasoned veteran, who has put his time in while in the minor leagues, all the while waiting to some day make it big in the major league. In another example, Jackie Robinson did not just succeed without adversity when he first attempted to play in Brooklyn, but as he persevered he eventually had remarkable success to the point that fans around the country now recognize and celebrate his accomplishments.

Baseball also tells us something about the power of faith and hope. Just ask a lifelong season ticket holder on the north side of Chicago what it means to have faith and hope. What you might find is that for fans of the Cubs, as with the Red Sox a few years back, being a fan is often about being in tune with something larger than ourselves. There is a feeling of sorts, a connection with others who desire just what we do to such a great extent, which makes us believe that if we just hold out hope and believe in something, that anything is possible sooner or later. I think this is another area where we are similar as Americans, not just fans of different teams across the country. Through implementation of innovation, we have often come to believe as Americans that we can find workable, practical solutions to the problems we face. We believe in who we are and we cherish that to the point that even if we lose once or twice, there is always the chance we will succeed the next time out, the next season.

I look at the structure of an individual game, as well, and reflect on the war we are fighting in Iraq. Baseball serves as a sort of microcosm for the policies various candidates are pushing concerning Iraq today. If the War in Iraq were a baseball game and the Democrats were managing your team, you'd be playing the game under protest and the outcome really wouldn't matter. Additionally, even if you did play, whether you were winning or losing, you would be conceding the game in the 4th inning under a liberal democrat manager and heading home with the results as is. The game managed by a conservative manager is a different story, however. The Republican policy suggestions, except for those advocated by one Ron Paul, plan for a nine inning game. Within this game, it is apparent that the starter has worked well into the game, but is now experiencing command problems (this is fair to say about the current administration). The republican manager makes a pitching change, but yet the team's desire to win the game is not altered, it simply takes on a different look. Whether the game is decided in nine innings or extra innings, the commitment under a conservative manager is to play the game out and do what it takes to win at the end of the day.

So, as I relfect on why I love this time of year so much (still not quite as much as basketball in March!), I realize that I enjoy watching everything unfold in part because it tells me something about who I am in this world. I am an American who enjoys seeing people succeed when given the chance. I like seeing people believe in something larger than themselves and have faith and hope that something great and wonderful can and will happen. I appreciate the stick-to-itiveness we have as a people to finish what we started and to do things the right way, even if it isn't popular at the time. I realize I may be conjuring up utopian ideals, but as an American and a baseball fan in October, that's my right.