I miss seeing kids play baseball in the local parks. Sure, soccer, which has replaced it, is the Beautiful Game, and it's more exciting to watch (and play, I imagine), but I miss the sound of the ball and bat and watching kids chase ground balls.
Maybe we could import cricket?
After complaining about this to baseball fan Clowncar, what I saw today gave me hope:
a big sister, maybe twelve years old, playing baseball in the park with her two little brothers. She was wearing the catcher's mitt... and a hijab (headscarf).
They were Somali kids.
A couple grade-school teachers I know say Somali girls are the firecrackers of the new generation: bright, sharp, go-getters.
Maybe they could save baseball.
Baseball (or softball) is the only team sport I was every able to play reasonably well, and the only one I'll consider watching in person---now that the Twins have an outdoor stadium, I'm actually considering going, and I like the St. Paul Saints. If you are ever up for a baseball expedition, let me know!
ReplyDeleteummm....you know you need five days for a >proper< game of cricket...at least baseball is over in an evening...
ReplyDeleteMOMO: I might just take you up on that!
ReplyDeleteMANFRED: Well, that won't work then.
I think it's in our constitution:
No sport shall last more than 5 hours, tops.
I like basketball--very fast.
a girl with a catcher's mitt and a hijab. such an American image.
ReplyDeleteor at least it would be back in the day we welcomed immigrants to our shores (and our national pastime). as opposed to now, greeting them at the border bristling with fear and anger.
Yes, I like it as an American image too.
ReplyDeleteI think every wave of immigrants has met hostility from the ones who came before.
Here, the ugly slurs the early Scandinavian immigrants used against the later Scandinavian arrivals were much like the ugly ethnic slurs one hears today. (Lazy, dirty, etc.)
Sigh.
Seems we never learn.