Happy New Year, Baseball!
There was no winter, spring, summer, or fall.
Growing up in our house there were only two seasons, Off-Season and Baseball Season.
This particular time of year was when my dad started shaving again and would trade-in the velour sweatpants he wore every single day of the off-season for Hawaiian shirts and shorts when we relocated for the month of March to Florida for Spring Training. During Spring Training games, I would nap in the booth under the radio engineer’s table while my sister did homework. The Orioles’ team hotel pool in Miami is where I learned how to swim.
Soon it would be Opening Day at the ballpark and my father would be wearing his tuxedo. It was New Year’s after all.
This New Year’s Day, my heart is heavy with both grief & anger over the latest senseless school shooting & my country’s inability to make the sensible, data-based, changes needed to protect that which is sacred. But if grief has taught me anything, it is that we fervently need reasons to gather in togetherness, to welcome the joy in when it appears, to celebrate where & when we can, and to cheer our heads off. Hot dogs help too. Not to forget, but to be galvanized for the road ahead—so that we do not become either immune or cynical. We simply have too much work to do to become either, my fellow citizens. So thank you, baseball.
To baseball fans everywhere, I wish you a very very “Happy New Year!”
May it be an absolutely amazing one.
*Especially for @sfgiants fans!
If you want to channel your heartbreak and grief into action and join the fight to end gun violence, consider following, donating to, and or volunteering with: