The Chandler Essays #2: Why I Love Baseball & How I Cope Without It

I can recall a few times when America's Pastime didn't matter as much to me as it does now. The first time I didn't care about baseball was when I was younger, crawling on the jute rug, scratchy as the hot sand. In the late 90s, I was living in a beach house in Avalon, NJ. While I hadn't acquired a taste for rugs at the time, there was this particular lamp that always caught my eye. It was long and skinny, and it glowed a yellow light, projecting silhouettes of many faces on the wall.

I was never alone in those days, for there was always blithe and chatter echoing throughout the room. Wine glasses dinged together, and there seemed this omnipresent scent of oily sunscreen fuming throughout the house. In the afternoon, we would go to the beach, but when the evenings came, it was time for all the adults to entertain themselves in other ways. While I had my eyes peeled on the mysterious lamp, there was a roar from behind, a game, a sport, a competition I could not understand. Could it have been baseball? I didn't know, and I didn't care— the lamp was far more interesting. Some of you might prefer to stare at a lamp as well. That is if the alternative was to watch a three-hour game that may lead to extra innings with no exciting halftime show or contact between players. The teenaged me would have agreed. My mind was on other things: writing books, making movies, and getting into Ivy League Schools with full scholarships. The latter of which never happened, but I still love books and movies. Baseball was a figment of the past, something that felt forced onto me by my enthusiastic parents as soon as I was old enough to walk (and yes, I walked a lot). Tee Ball and Little League meant fruit snacks and participation trophies. I mostly played Right Field and remembered picking at the grass and daydreaming under the sun. One year the coach dared to try something new and make me his favorite Catcher. I enjoyed playing behind the mound, as opposed to the desolate Right Field. To be in the midst of all the action made me feel like I genuinely earned those participation trophies. I got used to being sweaty as it would get so excruciatingly hot under all that heavy gear that it was damn near impossible to stay hydrated. Complaints of heat exhaustion and throbbing headaches made for the perfect excuse to sit out a few innings. My little league career could be summed up by the famous words of the great John Kruk, "I ain't an athlete lady..." Watching baseball became just as fun as it was to play because it took all the pressure off me to hit it outta the park, but I could appreciate the sport since I knew it so well. Similar to today, I prefer to watch and sometimes yell at the Major Leaguers on TV. The pitcher was always to blame for a loss. He was either a bum or a dingus or a good old-fashioned "belly itcher." Whether I was relaxing at the beach or running around at camp, baseball was there. My preteen years happened to be a time that most Philadelphians would never forget. It seemed the entire city was experiencing the come up of one of baseball's hottest teams— the Philadelphia Phillies. It was the beginning of a new era, a time when Philly could boast two players that were crowned MVP back to back years— Ryan Howard in 06' and Jimmy Rollins in 07'. A year later, on a cold, dreary night in October, Brad Lidge would close out the season with an Eric Hinske strikeout and win the World Series; Cole Hamels would win World Series MVP, and my mom took me out of school early to watch them parade down Broad Street. They were idols, and then they were legends. If you lived in Philadelphia during those years, you were a Phillies fan or nothing. So, I guess you can say baseball holds some sentiment to me, but when those days were over, I lost interest. College was my new pastime. I went to a University in a baseball town (Washington, D.C.). The Phillies were striking out and giving up leads. The infamous 2015 season, tortured dedicated fans, and the franchise lost some of its best players. Meanwhile, there was a new player making headlines, and he wasn't Hamels or Lidge or Rollins or Howard. Superstar Bryce Harper would lead the Washington Nationals to dominate the National League East in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017. My new college friends and I attended a game during Bryce Haper's MVP season who had one of the most impressive offensive performances in baseball history: 42 home runs, 118 runs, .460 OPS, and an OPS of 1.109. I don't even know what half of those numbers mean, and I'm impressed. If Harper makes it in the Hall of Fame, I will get to say I saw a sports legend in his prime. That would go on a long list of memories I have with the sport, and now that he is with the Phillies, I can honestly hope he does make it to CoopersTown. I guess it was the sentiment, age, and the uniqueness of the sport that led me to appreciate baseball again. It wasn't genuinely summer without baseball. How could I ever have gotten tired of hearing the chant of booing fans, the smell of overpriced hotdogs, and the mesmerizing slap of the ball hitting the bat 450 feet into the yard? God, I miss baseball, and I know I'm not alone. But how do we cope with things that are missing? As of now, we don't know when the MLB will return. There may not even be a 2020 season, and while that's a hard bandaid to strip off, that doesn't mean baseball has disappeared completely. I watched a few reruns on MLB.com, where all you need is a free account and the patience to sit through a few commercials. You can watch any spring training, regular-season, and post-season game free from the last two years. Of course, it'll never come close to the thrill of live TV, but it's one of many things you can do to distract yourself from the chaos of the day-to-day. There are creative and healthy new ways to get your baseball fix that I find to be pleasing and helps you to appreciate the sport in ways you never deemed imaginable. As one who feels that hobbies have tragically fallen by the wayside, only to be replaced with overzealous side-hustles and mind-numbing twitter rants, this pandemic gives people the excuse to remember the things they used to do for fun. Remember when you were a kid and did activities, not for the sake of profit, but because it gave you genuine bliss? You did things because you wanted to like a pastime, like playing baseball with a bunch of other kids with no chance of making it to the Majors. And you didn't care. People need hobbies as a way to look forward to being alone. Hence the return of Baseball Cards and other introverted activities like reading books. To cope with the fact I miss watching baseball, I am learning about baseball instead. It turns out there is so much to the sport I didn't even realize— a whole forgotten history that is making me think about the game I love in ways I could never have imagined. I'm reading "To Everything A Season" by Bruce Kuklick, which recounts a fascinating history about the legendary "Shibe Park," which used to live in the middle of Philadelphia (N 21st Street and Lehigh Avenue), instead of on the outskirts of town. I had no idea Philadelphia even had two baseball teams, nonetheless a famous stadium within walking distance from Temple University, my alma mater. The scenes are so vivid there are times where I can picture myself watching on the rooftop bleachers rooting for the home team, snacking on a hotdog. It turns out there are other ways to appreciate the sport than going to games. Some things cannot be replaced, and I agree there is nothing like rooting for the home team, but the MLB will come back, and so will the NBA, the NHL, the NFL, etc. Pick up a book on your favorite pastime and see if you discover anything new. If that doesn't do you any good, find something else to pass the time and create new memories. Collect cards, learn to cook the best ballpark food, brew beer. Don't let one thing get in the way of your opportunity for happiness. They say baseball is like life, so what better way to honor the sport than to appreciate life without it?

-Your Humble Writer, William Amari

Amari.Will@Gmail.com