BACK IN the early '90s, Saturday Night Live ran a skit, "George F. Will's Sports Machine," mocking his and others' near-pornographic rhapsodizing about baseball. Pressed by Jon Lovitz's Tommy Lasorda on whether he ever plays ball, Dana Carvey's Will responds, for example, "If, by play, you mean drink deep the aura of the game ... " (The transcript and some photos, including one depicting Corbin Bernsen's spot-on Mike Schmidt, are here.)
It's easy to catch a game in the Cape Cod Summer League, as I did last week, and find yourself digging up SAT words in an effort to do justice to the throwback era the league seems to represent. Most of the players are college kids, and they are not paid. They are put up by residents of the Cape. The PA announcer reads sponsors' messages between innings, and you can catch a player or two carrying a helmet with raffle tickets being sold by the intern he's accompanying through the crowd. The game I saw -- Yarmouth-Dennis hosting Cotuit -- was played at a high school. Granted, it was the nicest high school field I had ever seen, but it was still a high school. And when one of the Y-D Red Sox went yard, all of his teammates were waiting at home plate to high-five him.
It's important not to get carried away by all the nostalgia, though. (Having a 5-year-old ask for ice cream after ever other pitch certainly helps keep one grounded in reality.) It was just baseball -- which is what was so great about it. Between the poetic longing of baseball's past and the steroid-pumped, ear-blasting hyperactivity of its present, there is, simply, the game. A bunch of young guys playing a terrific game at a high level on a gorgeous late-spring evening -- nothing more, nothing less. And that was plenty for me.
A bunch of young guys playing a terrific game at a high level on a gorgeous late-spring evening -- nothing more, nothing less.
Sounds like it was a great place to be.
Posted by: Iain | Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 02:56 AM
'Twas, Iain. 'Twas.
Posted by: Tom Durso | Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 09:59 AM
Would it have killed you to mention Freddy Prinze Jr.'s ode to the Summer League? Would it?
Posted by: Chris Durso | Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 08:52 PM
I seriously thought about that, Chris, but I couldn't figure out a way to insert it that didn't seem forced. Jessica Biel, though ...
Posted by: Tom Durso | Thursday, June 28, 2007 at 07:23 AM
I've been to some of the Cape Cod games and know of what you speak. Eloquently written.
Posted by: Tom Goodman | Thursday, June 28, 2007 at 11:46 AM