Hope Springs Eternal

Hope Springs Eternal....most people are unclear of where the famous line came from.  But I am pretty sure the words speak of baseball, the start of Spring training, and the hope that this will be the year that your team will win it all.
Forget the groundhog.  Baseball has begun, so Spring must be coming soon.  Every year it seems that the tickets get more expensive, the games last too long, and the players under perform despite the million dollar contracts.  But every Spring, baseball and my team are forgiven.
When the season begins, I'm a kid again.  I flashback to my first game many years ago.  While visiting my grandparents in Chicago over the Summer, my grandmother asked her one employee if he would take me to the Cubs game that day.  I remember taking the train with him to Wrigley Field, seeing the ivy covered walls, the smell of hot dogs and stale beer.  We were quite a pair.  Bill was a 70 year old African American with thick glasses and wrinkled skin, and I was a pasty eight year old with a giant fro and a bag full of popcorn. 
Every year brings back baseball memories.  Catch with your dad in the backyard, pitching against the concrete stairs in front of your house, or your first little league home run (I think it was my only).
The Giants beat the Cubs in 14 innings that afternoon (all games were afternoon as Wrigley was the last team to add lights) as an old man named Willie McCovey hit a double off the left field ivy to win it.  My team lost, as the Cubs often did, but that is one thing that makes baseball perfect.  A team can lose 70 times during the season and still have a chance to win it all.
My memories as a young kid were special.  I was the kid, like many, who took my allowance money directly to the drugstore to buy baseball cards.  I was the kid who played baseball in my friend's backyards with whiffle balls, tennis balls, nerf balls, and a Fat Albert bat.  I was the kid who dreamed to one day play in the majors.
As a teenager, I was lucky enough to have a step father who was a sports writer and editor.  My memories include watching batting practice on the field of a major league game.  Meeting a few professional ball players in a locker room, with Reggie Jackson standing in the background.  And watching Rod Carew win a game with a single up the middle, then meeting him afterword as he gave me one of his baseball bats as a souvenir. 
If there was ever a fire in my home, I would save my family first, hope the dog is smart enough to follow, and then go back in for that bat.
I mean come on, it's baseball.  Dodger dogs, Kirk Gibson's homer, Kirby Puckett, the homer hanky, Bartman, Fenway, and the Yankees.  Baseball is a history of names including Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and Cool Papa Bell.  Baseball is family picnics, mustard stains, and pennant races.
Every year a memory is born.  In the past, some kid was sitting in the stands watching Babe Ruth.  In the past, some kid was throwing against the stairs like Bob Gibson.  And in the past, some kid remembers the time that he just missed catching a foul ball hit by a Derek Jeter, or a Troy Tulowitski.
Spring is coming.  Kids will be attending their first games.  Your team will go months before becoming mathematically eliminated.  And memories will be made.
After a long Winter, the groundhog claimed that Spring will come sooner this year.  Maybe he was in Punxsutawney looking for his shadow.  Or just maybe, the groundhog was in Glendale, Arizona watching the Rockies play the Diamondbacks, loaded up with sunblock, and drinking a beer in the right field stands.  Either way, Spring is coming.