Thursday, November 10, 2011
A Welcome Distraction
I often write about baseball's influence on me, my family, future generations, life, and society. The story lines of the game provide a balance to the story lines of life. Never has this been more evident than in the past week. Unthinkable darkness took place on the campus of Penn State University. Sexual abuse of young boys has haunted our thoughts, discussions, and television screens for the past week. And today we learned that a promising young talent with the Washington Nationals, Wilson Ramos, was abducted in his native Venezuela. The horror we learn of almost daily has to be counter-balanced. Sports does that for us.
As Joe Paterno was being fired and students were overturning news vans, stories about baseball provided an outlet. An escape. To read the what-ifs or maybes of Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder allows our brains to shut out the bad and operate on cruise control. Baseball has allowed us to do this for generations. There are other sports. Other distractions. But nothing like baseball.
From the Civil War to the World War I, from the Great Depression to World War II, from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq, baseball has been there. From Black Monday to the Iran Contra affair, from the Son of Sam to the BTK Killer, baseball has distracted. September 11th, The Great Recession, Penn State, Wilson Ramos, and more. Baseball doesn't stop. Baseball is unyielding in what it does.
With five months to go, the start of baseball's next season can't come soon enough. Silly stats and debates about the greatest of all-time are still a fall and a winter away. In between, we have off-season. We have predictions and outlooks to hold us over. As we tread through a scandal not seen before in sports history, the winter transactions of baseball executives give us something else to think about. As we wait, helpless for news of Wilson Ramos, Ramos' beloved sport, our beloved sport, give us something to take our minds off things.
The distraction of sports helps keep us going. With a game on TV, a trip to the ballpark, or an article here or there, we push forward. The games will go on and so will we.
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