"Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem."  ~Saul Steinberg

Nearly everyone you run into today in the Twin Cities, and perhaps even across the state, are excited about the opening game at the new Twins stadium. The newspapers, television and radio reports have all highlighted the first game in this long awaited return to outdoor baseball. As someone who did not grow up in Minnesota, I have no memories of anything but indoor baseball. All I have known is the roar of rabid fans inside the Metrodome. But last week we went to the new stadium for its open house and it was wonderful to see the usually humble Minnesotans walking around looking full of pride for such a beautiful facility. As we walked around the circumference of the stadium, the downtown skyline looked lovely and exciting, full of life. It was almost too much for some one the spectators who cast their eyes down as if to say 'this can't really be ours."

In writing this I know there are people who abhor this extravagance. I spoke with someone just last week who thought it was a terrible waste of money in such a time as this. He railed against the expense of something so lavish when just outside the doors there are so many people who are homeless, down-and-out, and in need of the simple necessities of life. While I don't disagree that there are all these problems to be cared for, I also can't help but remember the looks on the faces of those who walked around looking at the well created space for our national pass time. They were the faces of hope.

Hope comes to us in many guises. It arrives with the birth of a new child. It shows up when a problem that seems insurmountable shows a small crack where possibility can inch in. It is seen in the furrowed brow of a young child generating the answer to a difficult question.I saw it in the eyes of a seven year old boy as he looked at the green grass, the bases and the scoreboard that might someday carry his name. And hope also shows up in places where we can forget for a short period of time, but not forever, the desperate situations that make up our world. This is the work of theater, of music, of art and often of sports. Baseball, in particular, moves at a pace where you can watch a game, eat your dinner and carry on a fairly significant conversation at the same time. There is room to breathe and think in this game which is, I think, one of its gifts. Why I even have to admit that, nearly twenty-five years ago, I watched a Twins game while ordering my wedding band from a catalogue a friend had brought along!

I have warm memories of summer nights as a child, the humid Ohio heat soaking my cotton pajamas while in the next room my father listened to the Cincinnati Reds on the radio. That scratchy sound of voices rising and falling with excitement still lingers in my senses. It is probably when the hope of baseball was planted in me. It is probably why I feel the beginning of a baseball season is the start of, not only summer, but of a fresh start for so many things. Who knows what the season might bring? 

And so, as the Twins open this season, a clean slate and a new home is theirs. Outside the stadium the world will go on with its challenges, its failures and its loss. Our work in this arena is never finished. This is the fullness of life, that it contains, not only the deep valleys, but the mountain top experiences. So we take it all and do the best that we possibility can. I believe somehow taking a few hours away to enjoy the rhythm of baseball might provide the opportunity to rid our minds of the heaviness that can encroach with the pain of the world. It is not forgetting but, perhaps, a time of recharging.  And I am thankful for that.