Baseball – America’s Balm

I have the greatest retirement job in the world. No, not substitute teaching – although that’s a lot of fun, too. What’s even better is getting paid to watch baseball. My job is to insert electronic graphics into the streaming video production of AAA International League Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp games.

I like the team so much, what did I do on my off-day during the holiday weekend? Helen and I joined 10,278 other fans to watch the Shrimp close out their homestand with the Durham Bulls. But in the top of the 6th inning, right about the time the Bulls broke a 5-5 tie with a two-run home run, I realized I wasn’t just there because I love watching this group of guys play a beautiful game called baseball. On this Independence Day weekend, I was there to escape Red vs. Blue that’s turning our country black and blue.

Like most Americans, I’m saddened and distressed by the deepening fissures in our society. It’s especially disheartening because I’ve been a political junkie for most of my life. My earliest recollection of television was the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960. I was four years old. My mother was an elections inspector stationed at the polling place in my elementary school. There, I got to meet, and respect, many of local officials and candidates who led our city, county, and state. That set the hook.

But I was born with the journalism gene, so instead of a career in politics, I became a political reporter. To me, the old school ethic of objectivity was sacrosanct – I prided myself in avoiding any personal bias in my work. I carried that ethic to my second career as a journalism professor. My job as an educator was to teach students how to think, never what to think. Only now do I feel free to argue my very diverse but strongly held political positions.

But I no longer have the heart.

Yes, I can get in some spirited debates among friends. But they are few and far between. It’s simply too painful to discuss politics now. Beliefs are far too entrenched. Discussion persuades no one. It is no longer constructive. Instead, it is destructive. And I won’t add to the destruction.

Politics was the farthest thing from my mind as I rooted for a Shrimp comeback against the Bulls. No, my pure objectivity does NOT extend to my fandom, especially the Shrimp. Helen and I were lucky enough to see some great, major-league caliber plays, but also to enjoy the huge crowd celebrating America’s birthday. Part of that crowd was the young family in front of us. The dad was probably in his 20s, taking his kindergarten-aged son to his very first baseball game. Mom held their six-month-old.

The baby seemed fascinated by Helen’s Shrimp cap and my beard, so we couldn’t help but occasionally say a few words and smile at him, leading to some very pleasant “parent” conversation with Mom and Dad. But right around the top of the 6^th, I noticed the light red stripes on the back of Mom’s shirt. They were part of a patriotic design modeled after our flag. A closer look revealed those red stripes were composed of outlines of firearms – pistols, revolvers, hunting rifles, AK-type assault weapons – every type of gun you could imagine.

My knee-jerk thought was, “Great, gun nuts.”

I looked around the sold-out stadium and wondered how many other “gun nuts” were here. But, as the Bulls added an insurance run in the 8^th, I realized I was looking at America – a great and wonderful people with many different views of what America is to them. No, I don’t like guns but I support the Second Amendment. And there was no reason for me to change my identification of the people in front of me to gun nuts instead of what they really were – a nice, young American family.

The political fissure was in my own head and of my own making. So I mentally filled it, quickly completely, and contritely.

Baseball is more than the American pastime. Baseball can be the balm that binds our wounds and summons our better angels. So go see a game. Grab a hot dog and a beverage. If you’re in Jacksonville, you’ll get to see a great group of guys trying hard to fulfill their big-league dreams. But no matter what stadium you visit, look around at the crowd around you – a crowd that you’re a part of. And forget the labels. This is America in all her glory.