Baseball As God Intended

Baseball under the sun; God providing natural energy as our nation's heroes battle during the duel heat of August and a maddening pennant race. With all of the money tied into maximizing television ratings by playing as many games as possible at night it was heartwarming to see the two most popular teams hosting Wednesday afternoon games. With the aid of cable's Extra Innings package, those of us who could not soak in the live sun could follow the Yankees and Red Sox's games on TV. Even though both home teams lost, the intensity was felt as the Yanks tied their game with the Orioles with a last chance ninth inning home run (only to give back the runs in the tenth inning in a losing effort) and the Sox kept clawing at the lowly Tampa Bay nine (and also losing by coming up one run short). Announcers from New York and Boston continually kept their viewers abreast of the happenings at the enemy parks. And how amazing that even in midweek both stadiums were packed. In the 1940's and 1950's many teams started their games around 3 pm to take advantage of the beauty of the sun's rays glistening upon the manicured green field that the home boys in crisp whites and the visitors in gray competed upon. (Well we are getting a bit poetic here as there were probably economic reasons for the schedule.) Unfortunately the Wednesday afternoon game and Sunday doubleheader has become a vanishing occurrence. When those in the eastern time zone begin to nod out as playoff and world series games march past 11 pm later this fall, I hope that the those who attended or watched yesterday's games will be thankful that just for a moment money and greed were put aside as baseball titan's played the pastoral game in the environment it was meant to be played in.