The Special Allure of Baseball Lies in Its Lore and Legacy

Only in baseball.

There in a wheat field stands a boy in bib overalls, all alone, but he sees and hears an invisible crowd applauding. Pure fantasy. Not a mime but a personal mind game. It’s all so make-believe. He throws a stone, swings a stick and tells himself this is the World Series.

No sport ever had a love affair with America to rival the passion of baseball. In cities, towns, villages and junctions, it’s played, recorded, talked about and replayed. An old man in a rocking chair relates to a grandson how he saw Ty Cobb run the bases and go into his fall-away slide to avoid a tag. He was literally a Tiger (Detroit version) who wore spikes.

And then there was Casey Stengel putting a sparrow under his cap and then giving the audience “the bird” when he came to the plate by tipping his hat and letting the creature fly off to infinity.

Of course, let us not forget Babe Ruth, influential figure, engaging personality and easily the most physically accomplished player of all time, who found admiring children trailing after him as if he were some kind of a come-to-life Pied Piper.

Only in baseball.

Performances have been known to be taken so seriously that assistance is requested from a Higher Authority, as witness the morning when a priest ascended the pulpit in a Brooklyn church and requested the parishioners pray to help Gil Hodges break an 0-for-21 slump in the World Series.

Where a President, George Bush, preparing to throw out a first ball for an opening game in Baltimore, warms up in the locker room to make sure the bulletproof vest he’s wearing isn’t going to impede his delivery. And then there is the President preceding him, Ronald Reagan, who played an alcoholic pitcher named Grover Cleveland Alexander in the movies but, before that, had been a play-by-play radio announcer re-creating games of the Chicago Cubs.

And such true-to-life characters came along as Babe Herman, Boots Poffenberger, Frenchy Bordagaray, Satchel Paige and Turkey Mike Donlin, who never thought it was unusual to carry around his late wife’s cremated remains in an urn wrapped in a brown paper bag. Don’t forget such overwhelming throwers as Dizzy Dean, Bob Gibson, Walter Johnson, Nolan Ryan and Bob Feller, who was known as “Rapid Robert.”

Only in baseball.

There was Jackie Robinson listening to more racial insults than any man should ever be forced to take as he brought about integration and made baseball truly the game for all of America. Once we asked him if he could write his own epitaph what would it be? “That he said strongly the things he believed,” was his succinct reply.

Stan (The Man) Musial hit with a stance resembling a corkscrew, and Joe DiMaggio spread out as if he were doing the split, and then there was Ted Williams, erect, strong of wrists and keen of eye. They all hit with superb ability yet did it in their own distinctive ways. And, of course, Willie Mays swinging so hard he left his feet.

There have been nicknames such as Dusty, Rabbit and Scooter. Even Flea, Hack and Pie. The origin of the game’s roots go back to the Civil War when soldiers supposedly played with bats and balls in pick-up skirmishes on campgrounds when they weren’t fighting for their lives.

Only in baseball.

A tall, thin man named Connie Mack, who was born Cornelius McGillicuddy, was sainted for the way he carried himself, the patience and integrity he displayed and every father in the country wanted his son to grow up to play for a manager who never went on the field to argue with umpires but, instead, summoned the officials to the dugout when he had a dispute. And, surprisingly, or not, they always came to lend an attentive ear to his complaint.

Cool Papa Bell was said to be so fast he could turn off the light switch and be in bed, under the covers, before the room went dark.

Jimmie Foxx was strong enough to take a new baseball out of the box and with a twist of his wrists loosen the cover.

And a catcher from Princeton, one Morris (Moe) Berg, who became a World War II spy after playing in the major leagues for 15 years, spoke eight languages.

It’s where balls hit for distances by Mickey Mantle, Dick Allen, Frank Howard and Frank Robinson were measured by surveying crews for the benefit of perpetuity.

And there were teams called the Bronx Bombers, Miracle Braves and Whiz Kids.

A sportswriter, Walter Wellesley Smith, but you can call him Red, said, “Anyone who says it’s a dull game has a dull mind.”

Only in baseball.