The Cheap Seats: A Note from the Editor

Abstract

The Cheap SeatsA Note from the Editor Willie Steele Just a few weeks into 2020, my family and I left for what was supposed to be an entire semester in Europe. I’d be teaching in Vienna, Austria and planned to travel most weekends to various places I’d only read about. When we left, there were mentions of a virus that had been gaining momentum around the world, but my concerns were more about how much Wienerschnitzel I could eat and how I would do without having baseball for that long. For the first time in several years, I wouldn’t be attending the NINE Spring Training Conference and would miss the annual Cactus League games that signal the start of a new season. Just a few weeks into our experience abroad, there were rumblings about travel being limited if the virus numbers kept climbing. But I wasn’t too worried because I’d already discovered the answers to my first concerns: 1) I can eat a lot of Wienerschnitzel when given the chance, and 2) a guy in Prague tipped me off to some baseball leagues there that start in April. I’d already started making plans to Czech them out before coming home. Unfortunately for us, the coronavirus number kept climbing and our group was brought home six weeks earlier than planned. I’d missed the NINE conference by a week, but I was thankful my friends had gotten to enjoy the last baseball for several weeks before things shut down. Little did we know how long it would be before baseball would start again as teams at every level had shut things down for the spring. With little to do during the 14-day quarantine upon our return, I spent a lot of time online, quickly realizing I wasn’t the only person struggling with missing baseball. I felt more than a little guilty for this as the virus had already had deadly effects on people around the world, disrupted the education system, and brought many businesses to a grinding halt. But it was springtime, and I was supposed to be enjoying the start to another baseball season. I saw people posting videos of old ballgames and debating others about who the best team was (or who the best left-handed hitter was with two men on in the bottom of the 8th inning while playing a night game with a temperature of 72 degrees or [End Page xi] warmer). Others were even showing off artwork they’d begun creating from old baseball cards (I admit that I got so bored I began doing this as well). The idea for this issue of the journal came from seeing how others online dealt with no baseball. We put out the call for articles, calling the issue “Baseball Is . . .” because for each of us, baseball is something different. The response was nothing less than overwhelming. We had enough submissions to fill nearly six regular issues of NINE. The articles ranged from childhood memories of favorite teams and players to introspective narratives about the relevance of a game in the midst of a global pandemic. The writers ranged from an octogenarian who vividly recalled games more than six decades past to a teenager who spends his time on Waveland Avenue waiting for home run balls to land in the street. Pieces were submitted by well-known writers whose work has appeared in national publications and first-time authors who simply wanted to share their stories. And while I would have loved to include many more articles than what this double issue you are reading can hold, the reality was that some difficult decisions had to be made. I felt like the guy who gets to pick his starting line-up from a list of All-Stars. No matter how good the list I selected would end up being, some fine talent was going to be left off the roster. The result, however, is what I hope is an eclectic selection of work from a variety of perspectives. There is a little poetry, a creative piece or two, reflections on family, cultural commentaries, tributes to families and friends, and...