If You Build It...

I'm watching 'Field of Dreams'. On Scottish television. And for some reason, it feels slightly surreal. Maybe its because they don't even PLAY baseball over here!

I have forgotten how much I love this movie! A man hearing voices ('If you build it, he will come'). America's pastime. A cute kid. Shoeless Joe Jackson. Darth Vader's voice, without the creepy breathing. What's not to love?

Most of all, it reminds me of my grandfathers. Both Cecil and Pop loved baseball! Pop was always going to games, both major and minor league. And Cec would be listening to the Yankees game while watching the Orioles play on TV.

So in honor of Cecil and Pop, and the game they loved, I've included the following poem, for your reading pleasure. 'The Crack of A Bat' was written sometime in the 1950s or 60s by an American journalist working in Europe. Every spring its published in the International Herald Tribune. That's where I found it, in 2002, while waiting in a German airport. I've carried it in my wallet ever since. Cec and Pop, I miss you.

THE CRACK OF A BAT by Dick Roraback

Away on this side of the ocean
When the chestnuts are hinting of green

And the first of the café commandos

Are moving outside for a fine

And the sound of spring beats a bolero

As Paree sheds her coat and her hat

The sound that is missed more than any

Is the sound of the crack of a bat.

There’s an animal kind of feeling

There’s a stirring down at Vincennes Zoo

And the kid down the hall’s getting restless

Taking stairs like a young kangaroo

Now the dandy is walking his poodle

And the concierge sunning her cat

But the heart’s with the Cubs and the Tigers

And the sound of the crack of a bat.

In the park on the corner run schoolboys

With a couple of cartons for props

Kicking goals à la Fontaine or Kopa

While a little guy chikies for cops

“Goal for us,” “No it’s not,” “You’re a liar,”

Then the classical shrieks of a spat

But it’s not like a rhubarb at home plate

Or the sound of the crack of a bat.

Here the stadia thrill to the scrumdowns

And the soccer fans flock to the games

And the chic punt the nags out a Longchamp

Where the women are dames and not dames

But it’s different at Forbes and at Griffith

The homes of the Buc and the Nat

Where the hotdog and peanut share laurels

With the sound of the crack of a bat.

No, a Yank can’t describe to a Frenchman

The rasp of an umpire’s call
The continuing charms of statistics

Changing hist’ry with each strike and ball

Nor the self-conscious jog of the slugger

Rounding third with the tip of his hat

Nor the half-smothered grace of a hook slide

Nor the sound of the crack of a bat.

Now, the golfer is buffing his niblick

And the tennis buff’s tightening his strings

And the fisherman’s flexing his flyrod

Like a thousand and one other springs
Oh, the sports on both sides of the ocean

Have a great deal in common, at that

But the thing that’s not HERE

At this time of the year

Is the sound of the crack of a bat.