Spring Training 1996
We are big men in small seats, knees crammed in against the next row. Unfolding, we stand for the national anthem and you, Dodgers hat over heart, smile while you cry. First pitch, I crack peanuts, toss the shells, and return to the days when you took me to twinight doubleheaders and I knew all the players and their stats. Once, you too would have remembered the double-play grace of Alley’s quick flip to Mazeroski and Clendenon’s long stretch at first base. Back then, we had more to say. Here, under this Florida sun, it is enough to hear the crack of the bat and to trace the ball as it sails over freshly-mowed grass into that hanging blue moment at the top of its arc. It is enough to watch it fall to the edge of the warning track, where a rookie outfielder waits, tapping leather, to make the first out. It is enough that this game, in all its lovely zeros, is still perfect: No hits, no runs, no errors.
