What Goes Around Comes Around

Hear it here!

 

When I was a kid I got to see the Giants play baseball because a family member had season tickets.

Now that’s I’m older, I can still see the Giants play baseball because an another family member has season tickets.

Let me explain.

Growing up, my father, Joe, had tickets for the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds.

So, I got to go.

Now, my wife Jamie has tickets to the San Francisco Giants for their spring Cactus League games at Scottsdale Stadium. And I get to go.

How’s that for completing the circle?

There’s a kind of throwback to a more innocent and joyful time when you attend an exhibition baseball game in the spring. It not only signals the end of what could have been a harsh winter to welcoming the start of a warmer, brighter, happier time, with the summer sport of baseball about to take center stage.

At the ballpark, boys and men wear shorts, team jerseys and baseball caps while girls and women do the same. Parents bring their children and spend a family day sitting and watching a game played on lush green grass under clear blue skies, with the unmistakable crackling sounds of a ball meeting a bat, with the crowd cheering when something exciting happens.

Concessionaires roam the park hawking whatever food or beverage there’re carrying.

Is there anyone in the stadium not having a grand time?  I don’t think so.

To say things are different than they used to be in practically every aspect of life is not only a gross understatement but now, almost a cliche.

But the atmosphere at a spring training ball game is pretty much exactly as it has always been. It’s one thing that is the same today as it was 100 years ago. Imagine.

I never really attended one of these games as a youngster. We lived in Queens outside of the city and waited for the real season to begin. My dad took me to Opening Day at the Polo Grounds every year.

But I had the radio broadcasts of the exhibition games to whet my appetite.

The Giants trained in Phoenix, a million miles from home, and I never missed listening to every spring game they played. Usually it was against the Cleveland Indians, who trained in Tucson. They played about 20 games each other since there were only four teams training in Arizona. All the rest were in Florida. Now 15 work out of Florida, and 15 in Arizona.

I would also listen to the games played by the NY Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers. The Yanks called St. Petersburg their spring home. The Dodgers were in Vero Beach.

It’s funny, I always wondered why it was getting dark when the Giants broadcasts began and when it was over it was pitch black outside.

I guess I was unaware of a three-hour time difference when I was eight years old.

But the sounds of the games, as I described earlier, was magic to me. That’s a big part of what I’ve always felt about baseball being far better on radio than television.

Why, I think books have the edge over film and TV.

That’s when your imagination takes over.

I have a feeling my younger audience would think I’m out of my mind.

Now we’re on the brink of another baseball season.

It was once considered our national pastime, but those days are long gone.

Baseball has been eclipsed by the NFL.

But it still has its legion of followers, especially in the cities where the teams play. Fans sit back and see their favorites at the ballpark and on television. And yes, they listen to the games on radio in their cars and anywhere else where a TV isn’t handy.

With a 162-game schedule, it is a long journey, a marathon, a day-by-day story that unfolds over time.

But it all starts with spring training. The Grapefruit League if you’re in Florida, or the Cactus League if you’re out west to set the stage for the season ahead. The exhibition games when the results don’t count.

However, the sights and sounds awakening a new time for the months ahead have all the meaning in the world.

A short note on the first two rounds of March Madness.

The buzzer beaters and the rise of a Cinderella team or two which spark the first week of the tournament basically didn’t materialize.

Oh, McNeese State scored a big upset in the first round but were dispatched in their next go. St.John’s, the #2 seed, was knocked off by Arkansas. John Calipari got the best of Rick Pitino, in the return of their personal rivalry. I still believe Pitino is the best coach out there, but when your team can’t buy any kind of a basket, whoever is coaching doesn’t matter.

Maybe things will change this week, when March Madness gets down to the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 phases of the tournament.