It feels good to be at the park

There. That’s better.
This has been an odd, somewhat out of kilter spring.
That early burst of warm weather confused not only plants but humans.
And I was even more confused by the early blooming than most folks because it happened while I was in Burma, halfway around the world and dealing with daily highs in the 101 degrees Fahrenheit range.
When I came home at the end of March, everything looked the way it normally does at the end of April.
That was unsettling enough, but then there was a death in the family, and that was followed by having my car totaled in a traffic accident.
On top of all that, we hadn’t been able to get to a baseball game yet this spring.
Most years find us at an Indianapolis Indians or Fort Wayne Tincaps or Cincinnati Reds game the first few weeks of the season, bundled up in fleece and hoping that our pilgrimage to the ballpark will hasten the advent of warmer days.
But not this year. Our calendar never seemed to coincide with the home game schedule for any of the teams we would normally go to see.
And baseball’s not really baseball on television. You have to be at the ballpark now and then to truly experience the game.
Finally, on Sunday we made it happen, zipping up to Parkview Field for an afternoon game in Fort Wayne.
Mothers’ Day at the ballpark is a family tradition at our house, and some years that’s been a chilly tradition.
But this Sunday was picture perfect. The skies were blue. The temperature was in the mid 70s. And the grass at the ballpark couldn’t have been greener.
I was grumpy on the drive up. Truth to tell, I’ve been pretty grumpy ever since the accident.
At the ballpark, though, this spring finally began to feel normal.
Kids and families were everywhere.
Players who were little more than kids themselves were signing autographs. Dads and Moms were explaining the game to little ones. And most of the kids had mitts, including one little girl whose mitt was a madras pastel design.
The game played out in its usual minor league fashion. There were moments of talent and promise, and moments of boneheadedness.
Two or three doubles, a home run, and some great throws from the outfield were offset by three recorded errors. There could have been more, but the scorekeepers were kind.
It was, in other words, everything you’d expect in a day at the ballpark.
Did the home team win?
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was that spring began to feel like spring again, that some of the things that had been out of kilter now clicked back into place where they belong, and that a summer full of games still lies ahead.

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