Jazz, the United States Constitution, and Baseball are the three best things our culture
has created, says writer Gerald Early. And I am one of those fans who loves the game, with
all its idiosyncrasies and old-fashioned virtues.
 When I was a child my family piled ten people into one car each year and drove 100
miles to see the AAA Seattle Rainiers play. We got one box of Cracker-Jacks apiece.
On the free program we carefully marked each strikeout (k), hit, and fielding play until
about the fourth inning when
we tired of the details and just
enjoyed the game. Everyone sang
the Star-Spangled Banner with a hand
over his heart, and belted Take Me Out to the
Ballgame in the middle of the seventh inning. On the way home, our
once-a-year dinner out was at Rose’s Fried Chicken, where you got free
rolls with the meal and unlimited mashed potatoes and gravy.
At night we gathered around the radio and listened to Leo Lassen
call the games. Little did we know that he, and many other announcers,
read the action of the “away” games over a wire and made up the
dramatics.
We moved to Southern California in the 1950s and graduated to the
Big Leagues. The storied Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers,
held only 23,000 fans and owner Walter O’Malley had big ideas.
He broke the hearts of Brooklyn fans and forever changed baseball
by moving to the West Coast in 1957 after 68 seasons in New York.
We followed the Dodgers from the Los Angeles Coliseum to Chavez
Ravine and enjoyed perhaps baseball’s greatest era with heroes never
to be equaled – “The Boys of Summer,” including Duke Snider, Gil
Hodges and PeeWee Reese.
 One of my greatest joys is having a seven-year-old grandson, Reed
Blanchard, who already loves the game. He pores over his collection of
baseball cards as youngsters have done for a hundred years; he calls to
discuss Astros personnel trades; he watches or listens to almost every
game and critiques the strategy of the coach; he treasures his baseballs
signed by Astros and visiting stars; he talks his mother into taking him
early to games so they can go down to the front rows and talk to the
players across the rail and get them to sign balls. Last Christmas I gave
him a photograph of Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio embracing on the
field of Minute Maid Park on the occasion of Biggio’s final game, and
he said, “You give me the best presents.” He says that when he is a
major-leaguer, he will be like Hunter Pence and sign autographs for as
long as kids want them.
Slow as it is, baseball is still alive and kicking.
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