The Cynic Express(ed) 1.25: Take Me Out...

     It's opening day of baseball season here in St. Louis and everywhere around the country. The air is warming, smelling lightly of the grass greening and the sun trickling onto the streets. The pennants over centerfield were rippling outward. The scent of peanuts and Cracker Jack (brand peanut and caramel popcorn snack TM all rights reserved) littered the area around Busch stadium, and as the red tides made their way into the stands, my life went on unimpeded.

     The place where I work sponsored a Cardinals luncheon with hot dogs and the invitation to wear red and jeans and the whole nine yard, or maybe, to keep the metaphors from running afoul, the whole 460 feet to left center. I stayed in my new cubicle.

     There used to be a time, back in the nineteen eighties, back when I was infatuated in that pre-teen way with the race for the pennant, when I cared. Back before I was working, perhaps, back when the point was the game itself. The performance, the sinew of muscle stretching for the fence, for the catch, for the third out in a difficult inning. Times when a cold April night in the upper swirls of Busch Stadium, nose running and home team losing--but not by much, filled my young chest with pride because I was there, high above the action but a part of the game, the team, the season. Even if the blasted Cardinals had beaten the Brewers in 1982, breaking my young Milwaukean heart after a game the left me crying myself to sleep. None of that mattered as long as Vince Coleman was still leading the league in stolen bases or John Tudor was on that night.

     That was before I got a job, before I worked for a living, before I lifted and stretched until sweat left my shirt wringable for less than seven dollars an hour. Before I realized that it was possible that I could work my entire life and not gross what baseball players make in a year.

     Before Dwight Gooden went from Doctor K to Kid Cocaine, before Darrel Strawberry appeared before the judge for his transgressions, before spitting on umpires.

     I went to college, grew up, got a life beyond the little cardboard clips that Tim Catlett and I used to trade. I grew disillusioned with sports, looked down on the grown men who live for ESPN-2, and haven't gone to the house the Stan built for several years. After all, odds were that the Cards, populated by transient mercenaries, were going to be playing one of those expansion teams created by the "acting" commissioner in an attempt to drag the baseball playoffs into November and television sweeps. I had gotten beyond those childhood flirtations with meaning in the sublime sports stat.

     But now I'm growing distracted in my disillusionment. Players are settling down here in St. Louis. Hometown heroes like Brian Jordan give a little more, it seems to me, than the players I was ignoring years ago. When the February clouds finally part in the first days of April and the tendrils of the spring sun sift down to the natural grass field, ancient (or so they seem) longings filter up from my youth, from my subconscious, or from ancestral memory. McGwire hits one long, clearing the bases. Vianney High School cancels classes so students can attend the major league debut of an alma mater. The sound of the crowd roaring raises goosebumps, and I will go.

     The game has changed a little bit. The bleachers out in left center are no longer three dollars; heck, the brats might not even be three dollars. Ballparks are flirting with high-tech kiosks and glamour toys to keep fans interested. Give me a Guess the Attendance game. Baseball has changed, maybe grown a little bit, and I have, too. We'll meet somewhere in the middle.