Baseball: a simple act of faith

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training tomorrow. Baseball season has begun.

Today, I’m happy in the woods with just the sounds of the trees, the birds, and the crunching of sticks under foot. But when I was 14, the summer my grandma asked me to paint her four-room lake cottage, I had to have my radio.

That’s how, between smears of yellow paint and sips of Wink, I discovered the Chicago Cubs.

Before a Cubs-Reds game. We won.

Back then, I wasn’t into sports much, though I wrestled in junior high (and won the Elkhart city tournament). Our family just wasn’t sports-minded, so I knew hardly anything about basketball or football, and what I knew about baseball was what I’d learned during pickup games in the vacant lot next door.

I must have been bored with “superjock” Larry Lujack and the Top 40 hits of my favorite station, WLS in Chicago, because one day I found myself  tuned to WMAQ. The Chicago White Sox were on the air.

Had I liked Harry Caray then, I’d be a White Sox fan today. In the early ’70s, Harry was the voice of the Sox, not of the Cubs. And his phlegmmy, gravel-toned broadcasts were hard for a new baseball fan to enjoy. But the game captured my imagination. It was slow-paced with moments of great excitement, like smooth brushstrokes followed by a bucket of paint dropped from the top of a ladder — just the thing for radio.

A line drive off the left-field wall, or a little “Texas Leaguer” over the shortstop’s head, or a grand slam home run — those were things even I could picture without a TV. And I slowly began to appreciate the game for what it was.

Captivated by baseball but dissatisfied by the announcer, I found another station — WGN, 720 on my AM dial.  Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau sounded to me like REAL announcers as they called the games for the Sox’s north side rivals, the Chicago Cubs. And soon, I was listening to all their games.

Ernie Banks

Ron Santo. Billy Williams. Ernie Banks. Don Kessinger. Fergie Jenkins.  I’m  a Cubs fan now, because I was a Cubs fan then. Not because they were winners, because as everyone knows, they seldom have been. I’m a Cubs fan because they are the Cubs.

There are no certainties or even good guesses about what will happen after pitchers and catchers report to spring training tomorrow.  As any baseball fan will tell you — and Cubs fans understand this more deeply than any Yankees fan ever could — each season is a roller coaster ride, with winning streaks that convince you the Word Series is just around the corner and dropped double-headers that leave you moaning “here we go again.”

This year, I begin as I try to do every year, without worry and without expectations. As befitting such a noble game and such an innocent induction into it, my allegiance is a simple act of faith.