A small handful of friends and I piled into my new (to me) SUV and headed out on the open road yesterday. Our destination: Arlington, Texas.
The reason: to watch the Rangers lose to Oakland. (C’mon, with their record and the fact they were playing the A’s it was a foregone conclusion!)
It was a good trip, jokes were told at one another’s expense, music was played probably too loud, and generally it was you’re a-typical “guys road-trip.”
A couple of us had never been to see a professional baseball game. (One might argue that after the display we were treated to, they still haven’t) That got me thinking: I’m not a diehard baseball fan, yet I’ll drive two hours one way and put miles on my vehicle to go and sit in the heat to watch a game I marginally enjoy.
Why is that?
What is it about sitting in the stands on a hot sunny summer’s day, with a beverage of your choice in one hand and a hot dog in the other that is so appealing?
I quote Terrence Mann from Field of Dreams:
“The one constant through all the years Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”
You can hear that speech, can’t you? You can see the field, can’t you? You want to be there, to run those bases, to sit and chew the fat with the old timers and hear their stories. Relive old memories.
I was never a great athlete. In high school, I lettered in theater for crying out loud!
But I always did enjoy baseball, wherever I saw it played. From Candlestick, to Fenway, to The Ballpark in Arlington. (I don’t know what it’s called now, and really don’t care.) Those are temples of Americana, a place that you can forget the politics and scandals that are going outside those walls. (And ignore the same that happens on the inside as well, if you try hard enough).
The smell of frying foods, the dirt on the field, the grass clipped the night before, they all add up to an olfactory overload of nostalgia that brings you back to little league fields and concession stands. Returned foul balls for a soda. Lemonheads, Atomic Fireballs, Big League Chew, and of course, the Hot Dogs.
Yep. I‘m a baseball fan. And I just bet you might be, too.
Ben Cox is the host of “Ben Cox in the Morning” weekday mornings from 6 to 9 on KQBZ, 96.9 FM in Brownwood Texas. He is the new in-stadium voice of the Howard Payne Yellow Jackets football team. Ben is also an event DJ for weddings, parties and the like, and can be contacted through the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce.
The thoughts and comments reflected in this column are those of the writer alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of Wendlee Broadcasting, or its affiliates.
