May you get all your wishes except one so you’ll still have something to strive for. And may the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest day of your past. (Irish Blessing)
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without words . . . And never stops at all. (Emily Dickinson)
A few years ago, we hosted a couple of young college baseball players who were spending their summer playing for our town’s farm league. They rose at noon, and then were engaged in practice or games or other baseball related activities until midnight. They read to children at the town library, led and participated in baseball camps for little leaguers, and generally immersed themselves in our all-American game for the entire summer — they ate, drank, and lived baseball. They loved baseball. And while they both professed the ambition to be coaches some day, underneath those words we could sense a wistful, “if I could just get good enough, I could play in the big leagues.”
When I was a little girl, I would sit for long hours on our back porch with my older sister who would be spending her summer painting wooden lawn ornaments for my carpenter grandfather. Being too young to paint, I would entertain myself by memorizing baseball facts — my sister was an avid baseball fan, and felt it incumbent upon herself to teach her little sister everything she could about baseball, from the 1954 New York Giants’ batting roster to all the stanzas of “Casey at the Bat.”
And can you believe I still remember both? From Willie Mays to Al Dark — and of course the famous saga of the heroic Casey. I won’t subject my beloved reader to all the stanzas (altho’ I would like to!), but suffice it to say that this epic classic poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer is, for baseball fans, a paean to hope and heroism. From its beginnings . . .
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day; the score stood four to two, with but one inning left to play . . . . (the fans) clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast; they thought, “If only Casey could get a whack at that — we’d put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.”
To its middle . . .
. . . from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell; it rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell; it pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat; for Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
To its ending . . .
. . .Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright, the band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light; and somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; but there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.
. . . it is a poem about hope. The hope that our “boys of summer” had, even if hidden from others, and maybe even themselves, hope that they might just “make it” someday.
Baseball is about hope. Through long, hot, endless days of summer, through 162 games for the major leagues, through a game’s nine slow innings that my husband says can be like watching paint dry, through endless years of practice and more practice for those hoping to make it to the majors — wow. And then through having the courage to keep on keeping on in the face of times like Casey’s descent . . . Because there’s always next year!
And hope that gave our boys the grace and generosity to spend long hours with even younger boys, giving them the training and encouragement to keep on keeping on in a game they loved. Giving them the gift of an optimistic spirit. . .
Here’s to Summer’s long hot days . . . Here’s to baseball . . . Here’s to Hope!