Friday, February 18, 2011

Thawing

Um...Spring Training...and the Reds come in as...defending NL Central Champs?

Anyone else still feel like it was all a dream?

I had a brief experience with winter a few days ago, that bitter, biting, bonechilling feeling that all who have lived in the Midwest and other wintry places know too well. The temperatures in Beirut are like those in Florida and Arizona at this time of year, but in the Bekaa Valley, sandwiched between snowcapped mountains, a version of winter wraps itself around the towns and villages and fields that sit eagerly waiting to be sown. Yesterday back in Beirut I sat by the sea and read a book trying to recall what bronze skin looked like, but despite having spent winter among palm trees and mild temperatures, I always felt it was winter in that extra-corporal sense. Winter, I think, if you're in a snow-free place, is a state of mind, and that state of mind lacks something: baseball.

I love this tidbit from Hal:
Baker was expansive about a number of subjects on Day One and looked at an Ohio writer with a tan and said, “What’s that, freezer burn?”
One of the many things that makes baseball so awesome is its start at the rebirth of the northern hemisphere when we stop shivering and start wearing fewer layers of clothing. Color starts to sneak back into the world, replacing the browns and grays with a crayola of life. The world is returned to us - no longer are we confined to our cabins waiting for winter to leave. It is going, forced out by the orbit of the Earth, and baseball is holding the door wide open for it.

Boy, this season is going to be fun, isn't it?

Today I wore shorts and a t-shirt for a couple of hours while sitting on the balcony, and there was one magical word to describe the spring air and the brilliant sunshine: baseball. Next up: tan.

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