With Spring, Comes Our Pasttime.

In preparation for his upcoming baseball season, I have been playing catch with and pitching batting practice to Z for the better part of the week. It has reminded me why I love baseball so much. Not the game of millionaires and steroid fueled meatheads (though I don't begrudge any of them their paychecks and Camden Yards is still one of my favorite places on the planet); no, I've been enjoying the simple game of baseball that can as easy as tossing catch in the front yard. Zipping the ball back and forth requires no thought, no words, no analysis. You can lose yourself in the sunshine, the smell of the glove, the snap of cowhide smacking webbing, in the repetitive, but beautiful simplicity of stepping and throwing.

Steve McQueen bouncing a baseball off the wall to while away his time in the prison camp cooler in The Great Escape is just one example of baseball symbolizing America. Whether Abner Doubleday truly invented the game on American soil is irrelevant. The game was cultivated here- on vacant lots and pristine green grass, by spending hours bouncing tennis balls off the front steps and by feeding tokens into the batting cage, by making wiffleballs dance on the breeze and by marveling at the majestic sleight-of-hand of a well turned 6-4-3 double play. And, often, just by fathers and children, teammates and buddies, coaches and players, havin' a catch in the yard.