Baseball - my first love

The Boys of Summer - Second Base, sequel to the award-winning first documentary, begins principal photography on March 13, 2014. We need your help. Please visit our kickstarter page and share it with your friends and family.

Legendary sports announcer Jack Buck wrote a great poem about the eternal nature of baseball called “365”. It’s worth clicking on the link for a quick, great read before reading on here.

It’s been a long time since I’ve loved baseball the way Jack suggests he does in this poem. There have been moments – flashes when the game meant everything. I was a “superfan” in the 80’s when baseball represented freedom to me and my friend Jonathan Okanes. That wasn’t just about my beloved A’s being a great team, which they became in the late ‘80’s and early 90’s. No, I watched with every bit of passion those middling teams of the mid-80’s who were led by guys like Dave Kingman, Curt Young and Jay Howell.

How could I love such a bunch of average champs? They were mine. And I saw them at a place that felt like home and freedom all at once. My adopted family of misfit fans lived in left center, back when there were actually bleachers in an Oakland Coliseum that favored an ivy-filled patch over the monstrosity that is Mt. Davis. I listened to Bill King and Lon Simmons call baseball games covertly in my high school classes via a transistor radio with an early, makeshift ear bud run up a long-sleeved shirt.

They were mine. It was young love. The truth of the relationship mattered little to me. The visceral feeling was everything. They were the only of my teams I was a fan of that I actually lived in the same town. The Broncos and Sonics were deeply beloved, but in an age before the Internet, that meant at a deeper distance than most today could likely understand. I grew up with the A’s at my fingertips.

So when I listened on opening day, claiming the pennant for the green and gold, it was tangible. Summers were glorious in the Bay, hot enough to do all of the wonderful things summer-heat implores us to do, but not so hot as to be too miserable not to do it. And sure, the game gave way in fall, to football. My visceral was caught up with my personal insomuch as having played and been deeply impacted by football and basketball, where I left my playing days of baseball behind me in the 7^th grade.

It took a spell longer than Christmastime to get the summer magic back. But when it came back, yes, hot dogs for dinner with nachos for my graduation party and we were all amazed by small hits – some as small and insignificant as one by Carney Lansford that drove in Bruce Bochte for an A’s win that was inconsequential and completely forgettable, most likely, to everyone except me and my pal Jon. We can still do Lon Simmons’ call today – but don’t ask us unless you want to see us laugh and be left, yourself, staring at us wondering why we’re laughing so hard.

The A’s were mine. And it was love. It still is today.

The Boys of Summer - Second Base, sequel to the award-winning first documentary, begins principal photography on March 13, 2014. We need your help. Please visit our kickstarter page and share it with your friends and family.