Baseball Dreams

Cincinnati is a baseball town.  Our Cincinnati Reds are the second oldest major league baseball team to play continuously in the same city.

The regular season in major league baseball consists of 162 games.  Opening Day is usually the last week in March or the first week in April.  It is a big deal here, with a parade and an inevitably sold out game.  After the weeks of spring training, we come to the opening game with great anticipation, for here, in Cincinnati, hope does, indeed, spring eternal.  Some years are miserable and our "boys of summer" lose badly from the very start.  In other years, things can start off looking promising.  The pitchers pitch and the hitters hit, and the fielders run and catch and throw with superhuman grace and skill.  We dare to hope.  Somewhere in the middle of the season, they play the All Star Game, and there's a bit of a break.  It marks the halfway point.  Usually, for us, the All Star Break marks the point where the season goes all to hell, and they break our collective hearts -- again.

In Cincinnati, people talk with deep reverence, about the Big Red Machine, and the years when the magic worked, and the team went to the playoffs and eventually won the World Series.  There is a wistfulness to that; the sound of baseball fans, long denied.  

This year has been different.  The early games were not promising.  They lost more than they won.  It seemed as if we'd never see them make it to 500.  But then things began to shift...  Our guys have won 64 and lost 41.  There are, therefore, 57 games left to play.  As of today, the Reds are 22 games above 500, and they have the best record in major league baseball.  We are ahead of everyone, and three and a half games ahead of our nearest competitor.  The excitement here is palpable, and everywhere you go, people are talking about our Reds.  We are beginning to believe, while simultaneously knowing that they might just turn around at any moment, and break our hearts.  But for right now, we are into the "dog days of summer," and our Reds are playing their hearts out, and we are caught up in the excitement and magic and special glow of that place that is full of possibility.

swan