I had forgotten there was a time in my life when I really loved baseball. It gave me a philosophy I could live by for a short while. I’d dress for a game the way a gladiator prepared for battle, wearing a uniform that nodded to the earlier part of the 20th-century. The stirrup socks over the tube socks was a real kick. Massaging my mitt with mink oil, oh, what a scent, until it was so supple the glove became a part of my hand. Wearing Rusty Staub’s #10 my entire baseball career, a 32” wooden bat when aluminum was all the rage, the wool baseball cap and double-knit pants and shirt, I’d lace up my cleats by wrapping the extra-long laces under and over and then double knotting them. I’d run out on to the field ready to play defense, mostly on the pitching mound and out in left field. The green grass, the clay, the square bases belted to the ground. Covered in dirt, stained with grass, I was so proud of looking the part by the end of the game, evidence I had played hard. I never let up. I hustled start to finish. I was a source of constant chatter, but no one was better than Gary Harris.
As is the case with most of our youth the best of who we were fades and the best of who we become traces a direct line to these glory days. Baseball is an American pastime that has traveled into the future and brought with it stadiums full of memories.
