Thursday, February 14, 2008

Happy Days

Today is Valentine's Day. If you want a few tips on how to get your lover in the mood on this most romantic of meaningless pseudo-holidays . . . uh, you'll have to go somewhere else.

Meanwhile, if you want a few morsels to get yourself into the mood as the dawn of yet another baseball season peeks around the bend, here you go. The practice of unearthing baseball quotes, quips, axioms, and adages is as hackneyed as they come . . . and it always works on me. What can I say? I'm an easy date, on Valentine's Day or any other.

Enjoy.

"That's the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball." --Bill Veeck

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." --Rogers Hornsby

"There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit." --Al Gallagher

"He asked if I was born-again. I said, 'Yep, each and every spring training.'" --Les Coole

"Don't tell me about the world. Not today. It's springtime and they're knocking baseball around fields where the grass is damp and green in the morning and the kids are trying to hit the curve ball." --Pete Hamill


And this one's for Nick -- or should I say it's for the legion of dimwits we used to call colleagues and still call friends, guys who will never understand baseball's allure. Pity them.


"With those who don't give a damn about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can't think of anything to say to them." --Art Hill

2 comments:

Nick said...

That last quote is a great one. We could throw back a pint or seven psychoanalyzing that collection of dolts. I just write them all off as a bunch of lunkheaded ignoramuses. Have you ever caught a glimpse of our unfortunate drinking buddies’ nonplussed mugs when you and I start engaging in baseball banter? It’s quite amusing. They twitch and writhe on their bar stools as if they have an uncooperative wedgie while desperately switching tactics between changing the subject to the Redskins or some mind numbing conversation about work. The latter tactic being especially amusing given our cohorts' generation X approach to labor.

Baseball is here my friends! Now let us all go out and start annoying those people who don’t get it by pretending it’s oh so poetic and magical! Just start quoting Bart Giammati, Ken Burns or best of all, Terrence Mann!

rob said...

swallows? it's salmon.

and i always liked les coole.

ah, the green fields of the mind. baseball, baby, where you been all winter?