Baseball and Love

Baseball and love go hand-in-hand; of that there can be no doubt. I’m not suggesting that couples can’t make it without baseball, only that baseball enhances your chances, exponentially. How could it not? If two people can speak the language of baseball, they are well on the way to speaking the language of love.

Take me and Gluten-Free Mama, for instance. When we first hooked up in early 1981, and still lived in San Jose, we took in several of the Giants games at Candlestick Park. That continued in the early spring of 1982, but only a matter of weeks later, in late May, we moved up to the Bell. There was no baseball on the mountain when we first arrived.

Then, over at neighbor Rex’s, a bunch of us carved out a kinda/sorta level field, rimmed with manzanita trees, built a backstop and commenced Sunday afternoon games involving the entire mountain community, including the Cow. It was an epic achievement in community togetherness, and it went on until the late eighties.

We watched our boys play ball on this field, we carted them down to town for Little League, and followed a couple of them as they played high school ball. If two parents speak the language of baseball, that’s a lot of built-in family communication right there.

About a dozen or so years ago, HeadSodBuster and his crew fired that field at Rex’s up again, and it felt pretty good. Community members started showing up and that went on for quite a spell. Folks kept bringing up town baseball, though, and leagues, with men and women playing, and the Laytonville Co-Ed Softball League was formed.

And a grand league it is, I might add. I have been known to patronize this particular venue, camera in hand, to snap a few hundred photos of some of the on-field action. Proving once again that if you take enough pics of anything, you’re bound to get lucky once in a while, I managed to snap a couple of decent shots.

All that did was fuel my enthusiasm.

Well, as luck or life would have it, GF Mama likes to watch SmallBoy play down at this field, part of that language of love I was prattling on about, so we have done so from the beginning. Baseball in all forms is good; in certain settings, it is vastly surpassing excellent. 

Unfortunately, though, while Markie had ahold of the controls early this spring, he went into his act, said a bunch of stuff, most of it politically motivated, and crashed and burned. Among the foul balls he tossed out there, was the one about not attending summer ball games in town anymore. 

Honestly, I tried to follow his logic, but it stayed just out of reach.

It has taken a while to sift through the ashes, but it’s patently obvious that it is necessary. Whereas telling points were made, injustices were addressed and outrage was spewed, it all fell for naught, except maybe, it made Markie feel better. 

Whatever. Markie’s locked up again, for the moment, but I’m not, and I know GF Mama would like to take in a game. So, fake beard or not, tat across my forehead, or not, I’m going to pack up my backpack, bring along my camera, and go with GF Mama down to watch SmallBoy play.

Not tonight, with the Bombers and Sho ‘Nuff going at it, 'cause it's late, but soon.

Hold a seat for me-I’m coming home.

Watch out, Fawn!