I’ve written of the many things I miss in my former home, St. Louis; among them, friends, family, co-workers and food. I also miss the big city (with a small town feel), architecture, and lately, above all, baseball.

Having a major league baseball team in your town makes a big difference, but nowhere, I believe, more than in St. Louis. It’s true what they say; St. Louis is a baseball town. Spring through fall, St. Louis breathes baseball.

Now, I can’t claim to have ever been a big fan of the game of baseball. It’s always been more about the experience to me; the stadium, the superstar athletes, the excitement of the crowd. I said once that what I love is the poetry of baseball. I said it to a group of people who had no earthly idea what I was talking about but it’s true: I love the music, fiction, movies, art and indeed, the poetry of baseball.  Maybe it’s because my dad has recited Casey at the Bat from memory to me since I was an infant.

My dad loves baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, in particular. As a kid in upstate New York, Dad could sometimes catch Cardinals games on St. Louis AM radio station KMOX when the reach at night was that much greater. He became a lifelong fan and when the opportunity to move to Springfield, Ill. came up, being just two hours away from his beloved team was too good to pass up. Springfield even had a Cards farm team so when we couldn’t get to St. Louis, a small scale version was available right across town. I loved going to those games — not for the baseball of course — but for the hot dog, the ice cold Coke, the ice cream in a cup eaten with a small wooden spoon, all that, and time with my dad.

This summer in Charlottesville, I’m missing baseball; the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, the peanuts, the Cracker Jack, oh, and catching a bit of the game.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 7:30 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.