Why Baseball is not just a sport to me, or, Why I love the Reds.
Baseball is more than just a sport to me. It is tied to so many memories of people and places, sounds and smells.
It was a schoolgirl’s crush on the little league pitcher. That boy’s last name rhymed with my first name, and I remember my brother, or maybe my mother, teasing, “Marcella Tortella”. His name was Richie.
It was playing in the backyard with my brother and our best friends, either “off the wall” where pitching meant bouncing a rubber ball off the garage next to our house, or whiffle ball, where the rules included hitting the runner with the ball to get him out.
It was watching my little brother play baseball, or watching my dad and the guys play softball, where honeybees visited garbage cans full of flavored ice cone wrappers and empty soda bottles, and little girls sat in the bleachers with dirty hands and faces from playing in the dust.
It was warm summer nights at my gram’s house, sitting with her on the front porch, watching fireflies and car’s pass by her house, and listening to the voice of Pirates baseball, Lanny Frattare. It was my dad parking at the gas station where my Uncle Henny worked and walking the several blocks to Three Rivers Stadium to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play. In the spring or fall, we sometimes played “hooky”, getting out of school to watch our favorite players alongside our favorite people, Mom and Dad, Grams, and her friend Angie. Baseball was remembering Angie-babe, as Gram called her, screaming out for her favorite player, “WILLIE!” (#8 Willie Stargell) If she was pissed at a player, depending on the number of beers she had, she hollered much more colorful things! Baseball was the smell of beer, peanuts and hotdogs, and the unspoken hope of ice cream on the way home.
When we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, baseball was going to watch the Buccos when they played the Braves. It was an eccentric teenage girl looking more like a bumblebee than a baseball fan, and the whole family singing Billy Joel during a rain delay. And when the need for watching baseball outweighed the need for staying loyal, it was cheering on the Cubbies when they were on WGN, or watching the Birmingham Barons play minor league ball.
Then I met Chris, and baseball became a Tomahawk Chop, and a chant that would make my folks crazy. They never did buy into the Atlanta Braves. They eventually moved back to Pittsburgh, and not long after we had our firstborn, we followed them. They loved their Buccos once more, but by then we had our Braves. That year the two faced each to go to the World Series, and living in the same house, we somehow made peace with that. Dad even took me to see the Pirates one summer when Jessie was more than just a twinkle, so I know there was no grudge.
When we moved near Akron, I lost touch with baseball. I was busy with a baby and a kindergardener, and the Cleveland Indians never caught my eye. We took Jeff to one game, but the spark wasn’t there.
Then we moved to Cincinnati, and I met the Reds. I don’t remember how it started; only that it didn’t happen right away. Maybe it was Joshua playing his first tee ball games. Maybe I heard Reds announcers Marty Brenneman or the “Cowboy” Jeff Brantley, when I was searching for Talk Radio. Whatever it was, baseball called me back, and when it did, all of the things that baseball meant came back with it. When I went to my first Reds game at the Great American Ballpark, I was in love. Like Three River Stadium, the Ballpark sits right beside the (Ohio) river, and when you look to right field, you can see the river and the river barges. Cincinnati itself reminds me of home, with skyscrapers and bridges, and colorful, city- loyal people. Now I am eager for another baseball season to begin, and while my boys are ready for it, my daughter isn’t so crazy about baseball. That’s okay though. Maybe one day when she is older, baseball won’t be all those boring games, but maybe it will be some of the things that baseball became to me. I hope when they get older, my kids will hear a game on the radio, and they will not think of baseball as just a sport, but a thousand happy memories.
