Monday, April 07, 2008

Opening Day in Chicago: It's all about the past

I know that Opening Day is supposed to be about hope and the future and this-is-really-going-to-be-the-year.

But it's not. Not for me.

There is that enormous, overwhelming rush when you walk into the seating area for the first time and you see grass so green it makes your eyes hurt. But you don't really see the grass as it is -- you see it as it was, that first, amazing time you saw it as a child.

White Sox fans my age don't see the Cell -- they -- we -- I -- see the field as it was, across the street, in the old Comiskey Park. And we are there with the people who first took us, our parents or grandparents, an uncle -- they may be long gone (they are in my case, surely) but they are there, with us, in that one, intense moment.

The moment passes. We live in the present and hope for the future, and the talk will be about today's game and whether the Sox should have saved some runs from last night to use this afternoon against Los Piranhas de Minnesota... but that connection is made, and reinforced, and renewed.

7 comments:

Empress Bee (of the high sea) said...

i know EXACTLY what you mean curmy! and it's a sports post too! woo hoo me!

for me it was memorial stadium and not camden yards. it was in the mid 50's don't remember exactly.

my father always left in the 7th inning so he could get out of the traffic! ha ha ha then he would get lost on the way home.

thanks for the memories this morning...

smiles, bee
tyvc

Ellee Seymour said...

I love seeing green grass too.
I hope the game went well Curmudgeon.

Sarge Charlie said...

I wanted to stop by and thank you for kind comment on my Manic Monday 1000 post.

Jean-Luc Picard said...

My team lost in the FA Cup semi Final in Britain.

Ralph said...

The grass (real and natural only) is what amazes me. I've only been to Fenway and Yankee stadia in the majors. When you go to the stands the green really explodes in front of you as you arrive in the portal...nothing at all like it. I only wish that I could acquire about 300 or square feet to replace the turf (if you could call it that) in the front yard...

sari said...

Play Ball!

Cynthia Bostwick said...

The theologians call it amenesis, the collective remembering over and over again of our defining histories, that remembering which becomes sacred and honorable: as much about the process of remembering as about the memories themselves. This was lovely, sweet and true. I hope you get that book deal.