Positive Presage: Baseball’s Arrival Signaled Better Days Were Ahead

Abstract

Positive PresageBaseball’s Arrival Signaled Better Days Were Ahead Greg Ford (bio) Baseball was never my favorite sport growing up; I was a football fan. However, our national pastime has been part of my life, provided many memorable moments, and always served as an omen of better days ahead. I can still remember the first three Major League Baseball games I ever attended. The first came in July 1968, when my sister took myself and our mother to watch the Washington Senators—now the Texas Rangers—host the Chicago White Sox. What little I recall consists of the White Sox hitting homer after homer off Senator pitching, and when I recently found the box score from that contest, I discovered I had a something of a good memory. The truth is the White Sox hit only two homers that evening, one in the first inning by Luis Aparicio and another in the second by Duane Josephson. However, it was enough to propel them to a 4–2 win. The Senators, who went on to have another losing season, got a measure of revenge the following day, downing the boys from the Windy City’s south side 8–4. I became something of a Senators follower after that, which was a hard thing to be, considering the team’s consistent efforts at staying below average. The one time they weren’t was a year later, in 1969, when they finished fourth in the American League East with a record of 86–76. A few years later, they left Washington after two dismal seasons and found a home in Arlington, Texas. It was also in 1969 when I viewed my second live contest. My uncle, his two sons and myself attended a Chicago Cubs-Los Angeles Dodgers contest at Dodger Stadium. The Cubs, who led the National League East at the time, prevailed 4–0. It would just be a short time later that the men from the Windy City’s north side would suffer one of Major League Baseball’s greatest late-season collapses. That occurred when the New York Mets, the miracle team of that season, overtook them, and captured not only the National League’s Eastern Division, [End Page 75] but the pennant and the World Series title as well. Less than a year later, in late May, I got to see those same Mets rally to beat the Houston Astros 4–3 at Shea Stadium. One might ask that if I am not a die-hard baseball fan, then how come I remember those three games so vividly? Well, they were the only ones I attended during that stretch, so it’s pretty easy to recall each of them and what happened. Also, they took place during an innocent stage of my life, when I wasn’t paying much attention to the world around me, and when sports, whether on television or in person, was a place where larger-than-life heroes displayed their talents. If they wore the uniform of your favorite team, all the better. Also, even as a child, I understood the arrival of another baseball season meant the coming of better weather. Don’t knock it. When you’re growing up in the Northeast, winters and the accompanying snow, ice and freezing temperatures can be pretty depressing. In my case, I lived in Connecticut, a state with the stereotype of having great schools, because there isn’t anything else to do. Arguably, there is a lot of truth to that, and during the winter, it can get pretty monotonous, unless one finds a place to go sledding or skiing. Then, starting in March, spring training began. By early April, the New York Yankees and Mets—they were the two teams whose games were available for viewing in my area—would open their respective seasons and begin nearly daily broadcasts of home and away contests. That was especially exciting as a little kid, when, sometimes either team, or even both, would televise afternoon games. It was actually quite a treat to come home from school and watch a game, something I could not do with football or basketball. More importantly, as the baseball season...