Talking Sports: Season's greetings

We made it!

Today is the first day of spring, and even if the weather sometimes doesn’t reflect it winter is done. As President Gerald Ford once said, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

OK, so it’s a bit strong to say that winter is a nightmare and I think Mr. Ford had something else on his mind back in August, 1974. Come to think of it, if you’ve ever spent a sweltering August day in Washington, D.C., you just might not mind a little touch of winter. But still, I think most everybody’s favorite season is spring.

Probably one of the best things about spring is baseball. No other sport - for me at least - defines a season better than baseball. When I was growing up the local newspaper would display the image of a clock that revealed how many days left until pitchers and catchers were required to report to Spring Training.

Oh boy, oh boy.

But it was usually sometime around my birthday in mid February that pitchers and cathers were to report. Though believing it was a sign that spring was nigh upon us I can’t tell you how many birthdays were spent watching the snow fall outside.

On the local sports calendar the Peetz Bulldogs are marking the first day of spring with a baseball game. That’s right. There’s still snow on the ground and more might fall in the next month or so. But still there will be baseball at Merino, Colo. this morning at 11 a.m.

The Sun-Telegraph will be there too. The game will be held two days late after being postponed from Tuesday’s miserable winter weather.

Better that the game be held on the first day of spring anyway.

The 11 a.m. start is a little unusual. The only times in my life I recall going to a baseball game before noon is at Fenway Park in Boston. Every Patriot’s Day - which as memory serves is a holiday in the states of Maine and Massachusetts only - the city holds the Boston Marathon.

The Red Sox have long played their part in the day of celebration by having a game at 11 a.m. When I was in college I lived within short walking distance of Fenway Park. During the years I went to school there I never missed the Patriot’s Day game. I always remember - at least during my years in Boston - that Patriot’s Day was always a beautiful spring day, just like today is expected to be in Sidney.

The idea of the morning Red Sox game was to have 30,000 or more fans pour out of the stadium into Kenmore Square after the last out. The timing would be such that just about the time the game should be over, the leaders of the Boston Marathon would be running through Kenmore.

Mobs and mobs of people pouring into the street to offer to encouragement to the runners. Of course baseball doesn’t abide by a clock, so it doesn’t always work out quite right. But thousands would have already been lining Commonwealth Avenue anyway.

For anyone west of Boston who wasn’t aware of that city’s annual spring sports tradition, they sure got an education last year. The news of the bombing that occurred near the marathon finish line in 2013 was flashed instantly around the globe. It remained in the headline for weeks.

I was on my way to Sidney at the time. I stopped off at a race track in Oklahoma - Will Rogers Downs - to take in the ponies. I first heard of the event there. No more reading my Daily Racing Form and no more making wagers on race horses for the rest of the day. I just watched the television stunned with a lump in my throat. I observed the greatest spring sports tradition I’ve ever known be soiled by the uselessness of hate and ignorance.

Maybe they’ll feel like they have to, but hopefully this year the day doesn’t devolve into a mass of security. Hopefully they don’t stifle the freedom of the masses with constant searches and frisks. Let the people enjoy one of the nation’s best sports traditions. If they don’t, it will never be the same and slowly die off, no matter how much the smell of spring permeates the air.

Because of the actions of lunatics, you can’t walk or drive in front of the White House anymore without getting arrested.

Pray the crazies don’t have the same effect on Patriot’s Day in Boston. If so they’ll have to change the name of the holiday or forget about it all together - because the ideals of the original patriots will be but a farce. Spring should be about hope.

No such worries in Merino today. I’ve got baseball already lined up. Somewhere between Sidney and Merino their must be a place one could get a little taste of some apple pie.