Maybe Coltrane Liked Baseball
On a mid-August day in 1980, I was one of 30,000-plus euphoric fans who watched George Brett go 4-4 against Toronto to push his batting average to .401. I'd been going to Kansas City's Royals Stadium usually once or twice a summer since the place had opened in 1973, and that was the loudest I'd ever heard it.
I remember not really wanting to leave that day.
Two months later, on a mid-October Tuesday, on the 10th floor of the University of Nebraska's Cather Hall, a wide-eyed, freshman Journalism major from Stromsburg approached a fellow Cather resident (let's call him Jed) and excitedly asked, "Who ya got in Game One tonight?"
I mean, come on - it was the Royals and the Phillies in the World Series. Kansas City. Truman Sports Complex. Worlds of Fun. Crown Center. Stephenson's Apple Farm. Jed was from Grand Island, Nebraska. Of course he was interested.
Or not.
Incredulous, Jed responded, "I'm listening to Coltrane tonight." Pivoting, he retreated to his room where I'm fairly certain Jed fired up a bong the size of Pete Rose's ego, dropped the needle on Giant Steps, and proceeded to pitch his version of a perfect game.
Okay, not everybody was into baseball.
Baseball was the first organized sport in which I participated. In the summer of 1972, teenaged co-coaches Bob and Bill Parminter (whom I idolized) placed me on the All-Star Team of the Stromsburg, Nebraska Pee-Wee Baseball program at Buckley Park. Shortstop. It was a seminal moment in my cursory athletic career. But I deserved that spot. I was a quality 10-year-old shortstop - solid defensively, with the occasional pop at the plate. Occasional pop. Skills that been honed from considerable time playing by myself or, on occasion, with a nearby neighbor on farmyard fields that were manicured as if they were Fenway Park.
I watched baseball with my dad. NBC. Game of the Week. Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek. I still (perhaps not so vividly) remember the night of the 1975 All-Star Game. My mom and sister were out somewhere and it was just my dad and me. We drove into Stromsburg and got crow-burgers-to-go from the CrowBar (on the south side of the square), drove home and watched the National League All-Stars score three in the top of the 9th to beat the American League, 6-3. The next morning we were up at 6 to check rows. (that's '70s farm irrigation lingo)
Then came high school - a small school - no baseball program. Summers on the farm were busy. American Legion Baseball had started to dwindle in my hometown, and I opted out of playing. But after graduation in the spring of 1980, I was still into baseball and figured most everybody else was too.
Turns out they weren't.
Four decades after that Cather Hall exchange, nothing much has changed. Ask 50 random folks on the street, maybe ten could name the two teams playing in this year's World Series - and that's a push. They're watching Netflix or Hulu or Premiere League Soccer or uploading something on Tik-Tok. Maybe listening to some Coltrane. Who knows? And anyway, Joe Buck sucks. He's awful. Worst announcer ever.
That's fine. I understand. (honestly though, I've never really understood all the Joe Buck hatred)
The game doesn't exactly pop in today's world. The average length of a Major League Baseball game this year was 3-hours, 10-minutes. That's about 40-minutes longer than the average game 41 years ago when George Brett toyed with .400. Go to a big league game these days and you see a lot of people in line for $20 beers while looking at their phone.
Because it's slooooow....there's plenty of time to do it.
Truth is, I drifted away from baseball after that freshman year in college. Oh, there were dalliances here and there over the last 40 years, but for the most part, the game got lost in my world. For me, baseball was like that random sock that gets thrown into the dryer but never comes out and then suddenly reappears - days or weeks or months later - tucked away in a hoodie or some fitted sheets.
But this past year, my clothes dryer/sock moment with baseball happened, and the game gradually re-emerged in my life.
During the winter I read David Halberstam's nearly 30-year-old book, October, 1964, his marvelous and typically thorough account of the 1964 seasons of the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees, which ended with the two teams in the World Series. On a roll, I then re-read Roger Kahn's landmark The Boys of Summer (a full 12 years ahead of Don Henley's hit tune), which Sports Illustrated aptly described, "....is a book about baseball like Moby Dick is a book about fishing."
In May, our nine-year-old son started play in an organized league with a couple of friends. In previous years, he had played some Parks and Rec t-ball and a season of coach-pitch. For us though, the pandemic wiped out baseball in the summer of 2020, so it was good to be back. The Oaks. Mini-Millers. Let's play ball.
I signed on to help coach.
The games and practices this summer were hot, dusty and a total blast. The Oaks were like a fine wine - slow to start - but the aging process brought noticeable improvement. One could literally see the kids getting better from game to game - getting dirty, sweating their brains out, having fun, and relishing the post-game treats. In our final game, playing with only eight players (it was July - people vacation!), the Oaks rallied from 8-0 down to win 9-8 in their final at-bat.
When September rolled around, Fall Ball brought us double-header Sundays on a different team, with new teammates and coaches. Games were laid-back, with the emphasis on fun and getting more at-bats, more pitches, more chances in the field. There were concessions throughout the day! What's not to love? Five Sundays. Ten games. Ernie Banks would've approved.
Which takes us to this year's Fall Classic.
Astros-Braves.
Baseball is back in my life again. And if John Coltrane were still around, I like to think he might tune in too.
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