Letter to the Editor

Stealing home

By Mike Caifa, Wallkill
Posted 4/2/20

All of us are trying to cope with sudden and extreme change in our world. The entire planet is suffering - physically, emotionally and economically. The gremlin of uncertainty haunts us daily as our …

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Letter to the Editor

Stealing home

Posted

All of us are trying to cope with sudden and extreme change in our world. The entire planet is suffering - physically, emotionally and economically. The gremlin of uncertainty haunts us daily as our best medical and scientific minds attempt to answer the question, “How much longer?”

Baseball fans are quietly marking time, being careful not to express our disappointment too loudly amidst such a serious threat to mankind, seemingly the most challenging in our lifetime. But to fans of the game, the virus has claimed a part of our psyche, something ingrained in us since the very beginnings of our memory. To us, the crack of wood connecting with high-velocity horsehide is as much a sound of Spring as is the call of a red-winged blackbird. But not now.

What should have been Opening Day has come and gone. Red, white and blue bunting stays packed away in ballpark storerooms. Stadium parking lots are empty, the hot dog grills cold. Tickets remain stowed in desk drawers or tacked to kitchen corkboards, their ultimate status unknown. Will they entitle their holders to future admission, or merely become souvenirs of a season lost to something once thought impossible?

For now, baseball’s manicured diamonds can only provide images of geometric perfection and thoughts of seasons past. There will be no leaping catches at the wall, no full counts with the bases loaded, no close plays at the plate with clouds of red dust and the deafening cheers of a sell out crowd. For now, there will be no baseball.

But there are bigger problems that must be solved. Human lives are at stake. The world as we know it hangs in the balance. We are engaged in a war that must be won. It will be tough, but we’ll get through it. We have to.

The great Dodgers announcer Vin Scully said it best when he recently told an interviewer, “If baseball starts up, we’ve got this thing beat and we can go about our lives.” Let’s hope that baseball starts up soon, for the sake of all of us.