That little grief when baseball ends and winter sets in

November 6, 9:59 AMSpiritual Life ExaminerRabbi Ben Kamin

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The New York Yankees, those imperial contenders in pin-stripes, seemed to be confidently in control by mid-game.  It was apparent, sealed: They were going to win Game Six, dethrone the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies, and win their 27^th World Series.  And then there would be no baseball again till after the darkest solstice.

Baseball is memory and numbers and faces and cards and wood and something your Dad said to you that you never forgot.

It occurred to me:  If this is the last day of the baseball season, then the grasses of time will again fold under and freeze, the winds will howl away hope till the thaw and buds of next spring, and we will robotically pass away the frigid time under the gridiron charges of sinewy pigskin-men in helmets and our own driven holiday neuroses, till pitchers and catchers and blossoms report and soften our hearts again.

The NBA is respectable enough entertainment, and everyone knows that football is what you watch to pass the long night between the World Series and spring training.  Hockey, meanwhile, is some kind of refrigerated rink deal that melts outside of Canada and shamed itself anyway in this republic when it named one of its teams the Mighty Ducks.

Baseball is solar, clock-less, and remains the only game that celebrates a man’s ability to sacrifice and long for home.  In no other sport does a team score even though the other team has the ball.  Its rituals, superstitions, susceptibilities to rain and wind even in billion dollar stadiums, its men in soft caps—all speak to something deep within the bucolic essence in a way that no hyper-crushed goal line stand or methodical foul shot cycle or zipping puck can possibly replicate.

Baseball is memory and numbers and faces and cards and wood and something your Dad said to you that you never forgot.

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