Opening Day
Opening Day
Baseball, A Thinking Woman’s Sport
Today is opening day of the 2016 Major League Baseball season. As most of you know I love baseball and am a die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fan. I couldn’t wait to get up this morning and watch my team open the season against the Pittsburgh Pirates with our Ace on the mound and the best catcher in the game behind the plate. It seems forever since the World Series ended in October but Spring is here and the Boys of Summer have come out to play.
It didn’t seem to matter that it was 32 degrees in Pittsburgh or that Waino didn’t have his best game or that we lost. The sound of the words “Play Ball” was all I needed to hear. I wore my Cardinals shoes my son got me for Christmas, my “I may live in California but my Heart is in St. Louis” T Shirt and My Yadi jersey as I sat riveted to the Fox MidWest feed on MLB with my husband who, being from England, doesn’t understand the game at all even after 15 years of watching it. That’s alright, I just ignore him when the game is on anyway.
They say that baseball is the thinking man’s game. Well, I’m here to tell you it is the thinking woman’s game too. I have been a baseball fan all of my life and can’t remember a time I wasn’t a Cardinals fan even though I never lived in St. Louis. I do come by it honestly though. My dad is from Missouri and he grew up a Cardinals fan and so did I and all of my relatives who still live there. I remember going to baseball games at the old Busch Stadium. There was nothing like it. We would visit my Aunt Jane in St. Louis and always go to at least one game. It was always a day game with the sun shining and the smell of hot dogs and peanuts wafting through the stadium. Frozen lemonade was a must. We would always get there when the players were warming up and could go down to the front and get players autographs and talk to them while they were practicing for the games. Those were the days when players loved their fans as much as the fans loved them. It was the perfect place to be as a young girl who wasn’t really into girl things.
That aside, Baseball is still the sport that brings back memories of my growing up and my aunt who has since passed on. She was a special person to me and between she and my mother I learned that baseball was not just a man’s game but that the nuance of the game made it perfect for the thinking woman. Baseball is a sport that requires attention, thoughtfulness, understanding, and cunning. It is a sport of tactics, multitasking, and thinking ahead. These are all traits that women have in abundance and value in others. The traits that women need in order to work, be a parent, manage a household, and the myriad of other things that women are called on to do everyday are played out in a single game of baseball.
Like life, the game is a series of small dramas that build and build to an ultimate crescendo that ends after nine innings of masters level chess playing on both sides using real pawns who may or may not be having a good day. Today, the Cards didn’t have a good day but it was a great day for me and a great day for baseball. It was a great day because it was Opening Day.