Tardy

It's been over a month since I wrote here. May was a very busy month so that by the weekend I was tired, but at the same time there wasn't much blogging fodder to put out. It's better to be silent than populate this with "I knitted on this and dealt with my health" every Sunday.

On the crafts front, I've been working on some crochet projects. I haven't been crocheting as long as I have been knitting, so these projects have been my means of gaining skill in that craft. My crochet hasn't been fancy -- washcloths and afghan squares -- but I'm getting better at keeping an even edge on the squares instead of coming out with trapezoids and quadrilaterals. Not much spinning. Still working on the Briar Rose BFL. (See? Blah blah blah.)

So what's been on my mind lately? Baseball. I've had an on-and-off affair with it since I was a kid. I couldn't play well -- there weren't many around in my neighborhood to play all the time in the summer -- but watched it with my dad. It was the one thing that the two of us enjoyed and connected with. Dad would tell me how wonderful Babe Ruth was to him when he was a kid and at one time was president of the local softball association. When Willie Stargell and the Pittsburgh Pirates came to Portland to play against their farm team, the Portland Beavers, Dad took me to see them play. I remember sitting in Civic Stadium with him, watching the game and being thrilled to see a major league team. We watched the 1975 World Series together, Red Sox vs Reds (I can still name most of the players for the Reds). He got me my own glove and I played in the street with my brothers' bat, the handle taped up with electrical tape because it was split. The big manhole cover was home plate and water meter covers on the left and right were third and first base. We figured out which stone in the street (the surface was a mix of rocks and cement) was second and we had a field. I never really played it at school because I was too conscientious of my lack of physical fitness. But it didn't stop me from loving it.

Now that I've grown I've reconnected with baseball. I didn't do so very much in the 80's but when Ken Burns produced his documentary "Baseball" I recognized something that I liked in childhood. My favorite players during my childhood were Pete Rose and Reggie Jackson, and I once did a book report on Lou Gehrig. With "Baseball" I learned about the other greats in baseball: Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Joe DiMaggio. I learned about the Brooklyn Dodgers and their connection with that borough. The history of baseball and its many stories of heroes both regal and fallen opened to me. And I learned about the Boston Red Sox.

If you had asked me about the Red Sox a few years ago and how I felt about them I would have shrugged. Yes they were an old team with a history that could be the makings of a soap opera. At the time I had no team affiliation so could take it or leave it. But when I make a couple of trips back east and hooked up with a number of New England knitters who were also baseball fans, I discovered the Red Sox Nation. Their finally winning a World Series after nearly a century sealed it. Not only did I have a team but I had compadres. You can't truly enjoy a sport unless you have fellow fans to feed that enjoyment. Who else would understand your mania?

I have been to only one Major League park and game and that was the NY Yankees vs. the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium (that was a thrill, lemmetellya! Seattle won too. ICHIROOO!). But some day I will go to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox. It won't be this year -- by the time I go east it will be World Series time or it will be over. But I want to go to Fenway. I want to see Youk and Tek, Drew and Big Papi. Anyone game?