30 Days of Joy: Field of Dreams

Note: This article is the next step in my challenge to find joy in something — anything — every day for 30 days. Today’s entry is part 29.

A few weeks ago, it was fried chicken that transported me back to childhood.

This weekend, it was baseball.

Deviating from our standard Friday night stagnation, my wife and I went to see the Houston Astros play the Kansas City Royals.

As exciting as it was to watch the first-place Astros in action, their 69–39 record could’ve been reversed and it wouldn’t have dampened my spirit.

What made the experience so special wasn’t the scoreboard but the overall spectacle:

The crack of the bat.

The snap of the mitt.

That first hint of green grass you see as you walk out into the seating area.

The hot dogs. There’s nothing like a ballpark hot dog.

It all took me back to when I was a kid, when my Little League days were spent dreaming of becoming a Big Leaguer; when my summer nights were for playing games in the street with friends, until there wasn’t enough light left to see the next pitch; when all I cared about doing was learning to track a fly ball, hit the cutoff man and spit sunflower seeds like the pros did.

In the movie, “Field of Dreams,” the character Terrance Mann (played by James Earl Jones) explained that baseball “reminds of us of all that once was good, and what could be again.”

Last night, it was nice to reconnect with that reminder.

America’s pastime, indeed.

*****

This originally appeared on 100 Naked Words.