The Tie that Binds

Full disclosure: This post is about baseball but I couldn't put that in the title because some of you (gasp!) would have skipped reading it. The post is really about why baseball has such emotional impact in my life. It's not really about baseball. Give it one paragraph, ok?

Today is Opening Day in St. Louis, the first home game of the season. Reading this article in the St. Louis Post this morning made me cry. I tried to explain why to my wondering husband. Why, indeed.

Growing up, the voices of Harry Caray and Jack Buck doing play-by-play on KMOX were the background of summer. Not many games were televised in the mid 1960's. Even the World Series was played in the afternoon and we listened on the radio. We had little transistor radios my Dad carried with him from room to room listening to the games. I remember backyard BBQs with the game playing. I remember going to sleep with games playing. I remember driving in the car with games playing.

The first game I attended was in 1965, the first season of Busch Stadium II. I was 5 years old and more interested in the popcorn box which folded into a megaphone after the popcorn was eaten. The organist led cheers like, "duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, Charge" and I gleefully yelled through my cardboard, popcorn-scented megaphone.

Here is what Cardinals baseball means to me: it is the tie that binds me to my childhood home, my family, my youth. Last night I fell asleep listening to the Cards-Brewers game. The Cards were behind 7-4 and when Pujols and Holliday both homered in the 9th inning to tie the game, the excitement in Mike Shannon's voice awakened me. (The Cards lost the game in the bottom of the 9th when the Brewers hit a walk-off home run.) I remembered stories my Dad tells about my Grandpa H., who died in 1954 before I was born, listening to Cardinals games on the radio and sleeping. Dad would tease his father-in-law by asking him what was the score of the game and Grandpa always knew. I often go to sleep now listening to late games and I always know the score when I wake up the next morning.

Baseball is my family's language of connection. When my sister was home for a visit in February, the week we placed my Dad in the nursing home, we had dinner with all 4 of us "kids" and one grandkid. The talk turned to, what else, baseball. My sister thought we were rude because she has no interest in baseball. I couldn't imagine what else we might all agree on or be interested in? Religion? Politics? Current events?

Growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis, I was painfully aware my family did not consider the city our permanent home. Our home was in the Ozark Mountains, but as I grew older and every living relative left down there died, I felt no connection to the ancestral home. The church I grew up in split twenty years ago and I've never felt at home in the old or new church since. My grade school was torn down ten years ago and a Post Office now sits on the spot where I learned to read, write, and play the violin. My junior high was completely remodeled a few years ago. I drive by and recognize only the gym. The house where I lived the first 21 years of my life has also been remodeled. A huge garage sits in the backyard where Dad's garden used to occupy the place of honor. Very little of my childhood remains. Neighbors and neighborhoods change.

Wendell Berry may not be a baseball fan. I'm sure he would say my love of the game and dependence on the St. Louis franchise for a sense of connectedness to my hometown is misplaced. But I recognize in my love for the hometown team something I desperately need in my life, that I think he would support: a place to call home.

Of course, on a deeper level, I recognize this world is not my home. I'm just passing through, a pilgrim on this temporal earth. Still, there is something similar in my search for a church to call home and my love of baseball. Rituals, traditions, history, pageantry. Baseball or church? Maybe both!

Play ball!

Sandy