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<\/a>Football replaced baseball as America\u2019s pastime a long time ago. It has for me too, despite my ethical concerns with football\u00a0and the business of football.<\/p>\n
But baseball was my first love. It\u2019s a beautiful game, and a game I desperately wanted to play. I played youth league baseball in the 4th<\/sup> and 5th<\/sup> grades \u2013 I was awful. I could field the ball OK, but I had a very weak arm and I couldn\u2019t hit at all. At All.<\/p>\n So I learned to keep score and I earned a letter as the statistician of my junior high baseball team. I don\u2019t remember if I asked about keeping the stats for the high school team and was turned down, or if I just decided to do something else. The baseball coach was also the advanced math teacher and we were on good terms (I was a lot better at math than at baseball), so I tend to think I just didn\u2019t ask, but I honestly can\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n I started playing slow pitch softball when I got out of college: sometimes low-level industrial leagues, sometimes church leagues. I could hit a softball (just not very far), and if I worked hard and played hard, I could keep up with the former jocks who were playing on cruise control. Sometimes, anyway. I enjoyed it for quite a few years, which included the early years of my Pagan exploration\u2026 and a softball field was where I learned a very important lesson about magical repercussions. That\u2019s a story I will not tell on the blog, and maybe not in person.<\/p>\n I stopped playing softball when I started running seriously. I had a bad night playing on a bad field. I took three hard ground balls off my shins \u2013 the last one came a fraction of an inch from hitting my knee. As I scrambled to recover the ball, I realized that if that ball had been just a bit higher, I\u2019d be sidelined from running for weeks and my dreams of running a marathon<\/a> would be gone. And so that was that.<\/p>\n After I stopped playing softball, my interest in baseball started to wane. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a coincidence. Then I moved away from Atlanta where the Braves were toward the end of their 14 straight division championships and to Texas where the Rangers were bad\u00a0and everybody talked about the Cowboys year-round. I got caught up with the rest of North Texas in the World Series trips of 2010 and 2011, but while I follow<\/em> baseball, I don\u2019t watch<\/em> much baseball any more.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s still something magical about hearing \u201cpitchers and catchers report\u201d during the coldest days of February. There\u2019s something special about Opening Day and the early games in April when everyone still has hope. So in celebration of the Great American Rites of Spring, and in hopes of convincing some of you too-cool-for-sports Pagans to take a closer look at this great game, here are four reasons why baseball is a Pagan game.<\/p>\n Baseball is the most pastoral of all the major sports<\/strong>. Tending the grass and the dirt is a big part of preparing to play \u2013 a good groundskeeper can make a difference in making your park more friendly to your team. Baseball is played in a park, and no two parks are the same. A few of the parks are really old (by American standards, anyway) \u2013 diehard baseball fans consider them temples, and some include actual shrines<\/a>.<\/p>\n Baseball is full of magic<\/strong>. OK, so most baseball magic falls into the category of superstition, but no other game has as many. Rally caps, religious gestures, don\u2019t step on the foul line, always tap your bat on the ground, and if something works, don\u2019t ever EVER change it.<\/p>\n Baseball has sacrifice<\/strong>. Sacrifice bunts, sacrifice flies, hitting behind the runner, taking a hit-by-pitch \u2013 baseball is full of ways in which a player makes a sacrifice for the greater good. And sometimes, more religious sacrifices<\/a> are involved.<\/p>\n Baseball covers \u00be of the Wheel of the Year<\/strong>. Baseball begins in the spring, at the time of planting, when Nature begins to awaken from her winter sleep. It continues through the long hot summer \u2013 it isn\u2019t enough to plant, you have to tend your crops as well. A game in June counts just as much in the standings as a game in September. In the fall we have the harvest \u2013 the teams that have played the best throughout the course of the long season move on to the playoffs. And the season doesn\u2019t end till Samhain \u2013 some years not till afterwards.<\/p>\n These are four reasons why baseball is a Pagan game, but I have no desire to claim it for us. It\u2019s a wonderful game, played passionately in Latin America, in Japan, in Korea, and here in North America. It belongs to everyone who ever picked up a bat and glove or who cheers for those who do. It lacks the athleticism of basketball, the speed of hockey, and the violence of football, but that\u2019s not necessarily a bad thing. If it\u2019s been a while since you\u2019ve seen a game, go find one on TV, or better yet, find a live game somewhere \u2013 major league, minor league, college, high school, or youth league. Grab a bag of peanuts and relax for a couple hours.<\/p>\n George Carlin didn\u2019t say half the things Facebook memes credit to him, but he did do one of the greatest comedy routines of all time: \u201cFootball or Baseball.\u201d Enjoy it.<\/p>\n This is the last of my pre-trip posts. I\u2019ll be back to regular blogging on Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/a>