Sending me back: what baseball means to me

"'Out of the past' was the name of the store, and its products consisted of memories: what was prosaic and even vulgar to one generation have been transmuted by the mere passing of years to a status at once magical and also camp."

Our protagonist.
Photo courtesy of Harvard
Political Review

Those are the opening lines of the novel written by Gil Pender, Owen Wilson's character in Midnight in Paris. Gil is a true romantic. Deep inside him lives the notion of Golden Era Thinking, the belief that one's outlook on life and priorities better befit a period in the past than the modernized world. His perfect society is Paris in the 1920s, in the rain. One night, something miraculous and inexplicable occurs, and a man tired of the rush and technology and (from his perspective) dearth of creativity of the 21st Century is transported back in time, fulfilling his dream. Every night, he is lucky enough to return to dance and converse with the great musicians, artists, writers and intellectuals of this famed decade. He falls in love with the past.


Like Gil, I too sometimes wonder about what it would be like to have been born sometime else. For me, I don't have a particular era; it could be the '50s, the '80s, the 1750s, the 1500's, maybe in some ancient civilization. It's not as much where I'm going as getting out of where I am.



I love my life. I am one of the more fortunate human beings to set foot on this planet. Not only am I entirely food secure, something taken very much for granted these days, but I live in a big house in the capital of the greatest country in the world, with an incredible family. I have been given a top-tier private education throughout my life. I could go on and on.

But I don't think that should stop me from pointing out problems plaguing society. There are so many things I don't like about today's world. Everyone seems so mad at each other. The polarization of the media has in turn polarized each side of every story, and no one wants to give an inch. Everyone seems to always think that they're right all the time, and free debate has been tossed aside in favor of intolerance of dissuading opinion. Am I exaggerating? Sure, but not all that much, really.

Furthermore, I hate technology. I don't mean I distrust its spread and the incredible rate at which the world's citizens have come to rely on it (though don't get me started on that). I mean it in the simplest way possible. I just don't get it. It looks like I was "sick" that one day in 3rd Grade when they sat everyone down and told them the secrets to Excel and Photoshop and Wing Dings and what have you. Our first podcast was delayed 45 minutes because I had no idea how to download Skype. I've got that down now, and am diving into the murky, uncertain waters of finally getting Microsoft Word on this computer. It may be too much for me. I digress.

Ultimately, I suppose that I sometimes feel a somewhat diluted, but equally passionate version of Gil's golden era thinking. It certainly does not consume me, but the idea always has a way of getting back to me. Again, that golden period is unknown to me. I just know that, at certain times in my life, it has glittered in my mind's eye compared to whatever tainted substance describes the present condition.

I loved Midnight in Paris. I thought it was beautifully filmed, expertly performed. But most of all, I connected with Gil Pender in a rare way. Never before had I felt that I understood someone I really didn't know at all, merely from staring at a screen as his form was projected onto it. It wasn't his nostalgia; I'd seen dozens of characters filled with lust for a period other than their own. No, this was something much more interesting, much more satisfying, much more, ironically, real. Perhaps what exactly we desired was slightly different, but what drew us together was the fact that we had both achieved our goals.

Gil made it into the past by getting into an antique car.

Is there anything better than this?
Photo courtesy of Kevin Lamb

I do it when I walk into a ballpark.

There is truly nothing like a baseball stadium on game day. Any other day, it's just a massive structure. On game day, it's alive, and it's flourishing. Here, I feel that I am stepping into history. Unlike any other sport, the rules of the national pastime have not been altered in a significant way in over a hundred years. Change has been a constant presence in our lives, and now more than ever, but not here, not on this hallowed ground. It is so easy for me to imagine past greats playing the game as I watch. In for Michael Morse comes Lou Gehrig. Hank Aaron replaces Jayson Werth at right (though basically anyone would do). Ian Desmond is tossed in favor of Cal Ripken. Strasburg? Come to think of it, let's leave that guy in a little longer. These guys have all played the same game, with the same rules.

Or this?
Photo courtesy of Lake Oswego
Little League

There is something undeniably magical about baseball, just as in Midnight in Paris. It goes beyond the major leagues, in fact. It is a highly personal feeling that is unique in life. I remember, and so do my friends, our first experiences in the sport, going all the way back to little league. I recall these times in far superior detail to any other early memories. The sight of the sun half-blinding me as I stare into the heavens for a falling fly ball. The sound of the bat, and the snug smack of the ball cleanly caught in a glove. The smell of that leather mitt, of the grass, and the dirt running up and down my uniform. The sting of a cut knee or elbow after sliding. The taste of sunflower seeds, Gatorade and orange slices. The agony and loneliness of a loss. The collective thrill of a win. It's like it was yesterday. Perhaps when I go to see a game now, what I am really brought back to is my childhood, when none of the problems I see in the world had even occurred, let alone mattered, to me.

In a rapidly-evolving world, baseball is an unwavering, undying fragment of the past. It has modernized to an extent, sure. Moneyball can attest to that, as can the incredibly lucrative salaries being doled out these days and steroid use. But as a fan, as a completely unaffiliated guy just sitting in a seat, with a glove in his hand still ready to catch his first foul ball, I don't have to think about that. From this vantage point, I can't tell how selfish so many of these players and their teams' executives and owners have become. Ignorance is bliss. I do know that the men selling peanuts and cracker jacks have been doing that for decades. When people who don't appreciate the sport or have never been to a real live game watch on TV, they're about as impatient with its slow pace as the Cubs' ring fingers must be. But I see it as a testament to a time when taking your time wasn't a cardinal sin, but a way of appreciating all that's around you and the subtleties in life. At its core, which to me means on the field, the game I love hasn't changed a bit, and that is so rare these days. As the new has replaced the old, baseball helps to represent the past, and proves that some things are best left unchanged.

Maybe thinking about what's wrong with modern society and coming up with a replacement has made me overlook so many of the incredible things that are happening in today's world. Actually, I'm sure that's the case. I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side. Whatever the case may be, baseball will always be there. At times, the grass on this side may seem like it's dying, but there will remain that lush patch that baseball provides in my life.

IT'S BASEBALL TIME!