The crack of the bat against the ball has never sounded so clear. From the 5th row of seats, right behind the home team dugout, the whole baseball park spreads out before me. Yellow bridges and tall buildings line the background, pointing toward the cloud-speckled sky. I came prepared for the cold since it’s only early April but a warm sun shines down, making me remove my bulky coat. Down here, so close to the field, there is a game going on. And it’s never looked so real.
I became a Pittsburgh Pirates fan and baseball learner when I married into a western Pennsylvania family. In Belgium, where I grew up, the sport of choice was soccer, and baseball was only a foreign game, played in that country across the ocean. My brothers did have a couple of bats, gloves and balls, gifts from American cousins who were sports-focused. Every now and then, our church youth group would use them for a made up game of what they believed might be baseball.
My maternal grandpa was my only other connection to baseball. He was a Cleveland Indians (sic) fan and, since he owned a well-known business, he sometimes got free tickets to their games at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. But I mostly remember watching games with him on a black and white television, where the players stood out in their white uniforms and always seemed to me to be at ease, chewing gum, until the ball was in play. Their relaxed stance and demeanor was the cultural opposite of where I lived. To my child’s eyes, they appeared bigger than life, so clean-cut and so “American.“ They fit my stereotype of that other world.
Later, when I joined my husband’s clan, under the influence of my father-in-law, baseball became part of the package. He bought tickets for us to attend a game at Three Rivers Stadium. That’s when I started really paying attention. The Pirates almost won the World Series during those years and I became hooked.
These days, I follow them mostly from afar but today, we are here at PNC park. It’s a new season full of hopes and dreams. And so far, the current Pirates’ team is coming through with mostly wins. The game that unfolds before our eyes is all we could ask for: a tied game with a home run that goes into extra innings with a walk-off win. After 3 hours and 25 minutes of play, we leave the park, exhilarated and happy.
There’s nothing quite like watching the game live. Everything else disappears except for those precise plays and the general good feel of the crowd. If the bug hasn’t bitten you yet, maybe this is your season. Go Pirates!