Got a beat-up glove, a home-made bat
And a brand new pair of shoes
You know I think it's time to give this game a ride
Just to hit the ball and touch 'em all
A moment in the sun
It's a-gone and you can tell that one goodbye
Oh, put me in, Coach, I'm ready to play today
Look at me -- I can be centerfield
~ John Fogerty
Spring training is underway, a sure sign of good things to come! I'll be heading up to Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie next week to see the Mets beat the Cardinals. And my son will be with me!
Following the end of Creedence Clearwater Revival, there was a lot of drama over contracts, producers, money, and who-knows-what-else. John Fogerty made a couple of solo efforts, but it was the release of Centerfield ten years later in 1985 that put him back in the spotlight. Despite the risk of doing a rock 'n roll song about a sport, the song remains a favorite today, a feel-good, nostalgic, all-American anthem to the sport that has captured the country's attention since the middle of the 19th century. In discussing the song, Fogerty opined, "It is about baseball, but it is also a metaphor about getting yourself motivated, about facing the challenge of one thing or another, at least at the beginning of an endeavor."
As a baby-boomer, my childhood was pre-Title IX, the Education Amendment Act of 1972 that guaranteed girls access to participation in sports. So sports for me was mostly sitting in the bleachers and cheering on the boys' Little League teams, deciding which one had the cutest players. Was it the Farmers (who wore blue hats) or the Wallkills (who wore yellow)? I recall favoring the blue, a coincidence that still bears true today, at least in the sport of politics. I do remember having a small collection of baseball cards, which I bought mostly for the bubblegum. The cards did make for a good motor sound when clothes-pinned to the spokes of my two-wheeler. My favorite player was Don Drysdale, mostly because I liked the sound of his name. Many years later, I read Doris Kearns Goodwin's Wait Till Next Year, part of which expounds upon the Dodgers' relocation from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1957. It's a really good book, by the way. And that pretty much sums up my personal history of baseball.
And then Sam came along. As his only parent from the time he was ten, I spent a lot of time in the bleachers again, watching that cute catcher, swift base-stealer, and all-around team player give his all to the game he loved. I miss those days. When I drove Sam up to the University of Vermont seven years ago, a day which I have always said was one of the saddest and happiest of my life, we went to a sports bar for dinner. Sam's eyes were drawn to a picture of Babe Ruth hanging on the wall over our table. "He looks like Dad," Sam said. I agreed with him; there was something in the Babe's eyes that reminded us of a thoughtful gaze that we knew well and missed profoundly. And we still do.
And that boy Sam? He will turn 25 tomorrow! Anyone can understand the way I feel.
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