take me out to a ballgame

I am watching (my former favorite team) the Chicago White Sox and the NY Yankees (my son's favorite team) on tv. I like baseball; always have. It's one of the few fun things my dad and I did together on a regular basis while growing up. He would take my sister and I into Comisky Park once during the summer and we would return with bellyaches from hot dogs, cokes and popcorn. More regularly, when his summer grass cutting and house painting chores were done, we would throw the ball in the backyard or catch a quick pick-up game at Wing Park.

Baseball's slow speed relaxes me and I can watch it on tv without sound and still be engaged. I like the shape of the baseball players bodies, although over time, their arm and thigh size seems to have expanded with the width of the tv set.

Locally, Mark and I have gone to the spring Dbacks games and summer Tucson Toros games. Our little TEP Park has a nice grassy area with cheap prices and it's always very family friendly with blow up bouncy rides and evening fireworks. Up in Phoenix, where we try to catch a Dbacks game once a summer, the dome keeps the AC working and walks around the stadium are good aerobic breaks between "at bats."

A couple of decades ago, when I was first involved in the National Issues Forum, I met Henry Kissinger and we had time to talk while sitting on a bale of hay at the LBJ Ranch, following a public event at the LBJ Library. At the public event, protestors were voicing their anger at Henry about his previous political positions, so he asked me about the protestors, since I had acknowledged at the event that, like them, I once had taken to the streets vs. the Viet Nam War.

I told him that if he wanted to understand part of the American culture, he needed to become familiar with baseball. Several years later, he came to Tucson for a speaking engagement and I was in the audience. He came over to me, calling me "my little activist" and proudly told me that he took my advice and had become a baseball fan. Not too long ago, Billy Crystal was on Jay Leno and he was talking about how he and Henry Kissinger share box seats at the Yankees' games.

So now baseball is also part of the immigration protest and debate movement. I didn't realize that 25% of the franchises players now come from countries other than the U.S., so immigration matters to baseball, too.

I am at least a month away from being able to walk to a stadium, but I can enjoy the game at home and think about the implications of baseball on my childhood, my relationship with my dad, my insights and understanding of American culture and international politics.

As a white leather ball soars into the sky and we watch it glitter agains the blue sky or the silver glare of neon, all of our dreams as spectators soar with it, hoping for a run to home base.