Appreciate Baseball

“The beautiful truth burst upon my mind—I felt that there were invisible lines stretched between my spirit and the spirits of others.”

The remarkable Helen Keller poignantly describes the sensation of learning language, in this case, the word, “love”. This is at once startling and incomprehensible for those of us who ordinarily take for granted God’s astounding gift to us of sight and sound. One of the better ways to cultivate appreciation of our senses is to exercise them actively. It is no effort to passively be battered by all the noise, visual included, encountered in a single day. But it repays to stop and consider. To be still. You don’t chug great wine. You don’t speed-read great poetry. You don’t blare great music. If you do, it’s because you don’t know better. And knowing better is not about how you want to be perceived by others. It’s about improving yourself. It’s about enjoying the gift of life. And like all truth, it’s irresistible once you know it. Truly know it.

In our present world, in 21st century USA, we are uniquely privileged with the opportunity to apply our senses to one of man’s greatest pageants: Baseball. Sight, sound, smell, and if one is acute enough, taste and touch, are all engaged. The senses inform the understanding; the understanding re-directs the senses. Go. Apply yourself and enjoy. Yes, fall in love again and your spirit will feel in the spirits of others so-minded, the same recognition of beauty as it bursts upon, and thereby enlarges, the mind. There is no game like Baseball and it’s here again!