Let it spring...let it spring...let it spring

[DocBauer]

Let it spring...let it spring...let it spring...

 

The memory still remains wonderfully vivid...but time has dulled calendar, and I forget if it was '82 or '83, my junior or senior year of high school, but like a splendid, framed lithograph on my wall, I still see, smell and feel in great detail, because....because...because I told and promised myself to NEVER forget.

 

School was out, (tip of the cap to Kearney Senior High and the Bearcats), I raided and ransacked my locker, tossing anything and everything not of value to me, (which wasn't much I confess). I stepped outside in to the late May afternoon, filled with blue and sunshine and only a few delicate whisps of white clouds high overhead. The grass was green and long on the couple acres of sloping hilltop that was splayed out before the tan-bricked school, and almost ready for an early mowing. The trees that dotted the landscape were fully clothed in early season fashion, and here and there a few groupings of weed, thistle and wild flower offered multi-color accent. 

 

The temperature was in the low 70's, no jacket required, and the sun felt like liquid warmth on face and exposed skin. I had to squint as I walked in to the gold, and I didn't mind or care in the least. There was the smell of fresh and new in the air. The smell of spring. And inside of me, I must confess, was the rush of dreams and hormones! 

 

What young man couldn't walk outside on a day like this was and not feel titillated with the possibilities of perpetual youth and perpetual possibility? The cold white and gray of winter was gone. Spring was in full swing, as were flights of fantasy. There were days and nights to kill, miles to drive, friends to do things with, late nights and sleep in mornings, days at the park or the beach, and, of course, the ever pursuit of the opposite sex. This was the newness, the rebirth, that was spring.

 

Let it spring...let it spring...let it spring...

 

But before that day, starting every late February, before the thaw and that special day I would commit to forever memory, there were young grown men..(some of them kids to me now)...driving and flying to Florida to prepare themselves for the upcoming season of Twins baseball. I might have walked out in to, and forever painted explicit and perfect memory of what spring was...but those men were the ones that signaled its beginning, calendar be damned! I knew when spring started...and it was when pitchers and catchers report.

 

Beyond a few classic phrases such as "I do", "I love you", your baby's first birth cry, or "you just won the Publisher's Clearinghouse", there are probably not any more beautiful words in the world than those four: "Pitchers and catchers report!" New Year's might mark the official beginning of the year, but the beginning of baseball birthed the "newness" of the year.

 

Let it spring...let it spring...let it spring...

 

I know baseball is a passion that means the world to all of us here at Twins Daily. If it didn't, or doesn't, then why in hell are you here in the first place? LOL And while I think it means a lot of the same things to each of us, there are also as many thoughts, memories, experiences and meanings as there are readers and contributors here

 

To me....

 

It's 5 years old watching my father co-coach a little league team named the Tigers in Brookings SD and then accompanying him, the head coach and the team to the Twin Cities for my very first Twins game at the old Met. If memory serves, it may have been the Tigers played that day. But other than the names Carew and Kilbrew, I remember little except enjoying being there with my dad and the team.

 

I also remember my father working around the house, me still that same 5 year old, and through the years older, and Twins games broadcasting from an old black transistor radio, splattered with various colors of paint, seemingly permanentely tuned to WNAX 57.0 out of Yankton SD.

 

 

There were trips in the car throughout my youth listening to whatever station we could get to come in, Smalley or Wynegar at the plate, Koosman or Goltz starting, Marshall coming in to close out the game before anyone knew what a "closer" was. All the while, my father educating me on the concepts and subtleties of the game, as well as his knowledge and experiences before my time.

 

There were visits to my grandparent's farm in north central SD, a game on the way hopefully, and me helping out with the feeding of calves in the early evenings, filling troughs of grain for the milk cows, opening and closing gates for the same, and the radio hung on a hook in the white-walled tank room calling out balls and strikes and scores to my father, grandfather and family members in the milking pit doing their jobs.

 

Let it spring...let it spring...let it spring...

 

As I matured...sort of...in central Nebraska I strained to listen to my beloved Twins on the same old radio station. Clock radios, transistors, home stereos and car radios were all great until the sun went down. And then it was listening through the static, grasping for 3 out of every 4 or 5 words at times, spoken by Herb to follow along. West coast swings were the worst! But when it was a big series, or a rookie pitcher, or a top prospect up for the first time, you HAD to listen! (I still recall listening to Puckett's first ever game in the front seat of my parked car)

 

Spring is a winter of paper, of any sort, and sketched out possible rosters and lineups and numbers shared with my father. And family just walking out of the room to give us an hour or so to talk amongst ourselves about what we hope for and expect. Projection and speculation can be a bitch. But also a great joy!

 

It's about years of lean that could make a fortune if it were a diet, only to be rewarded with a worst to first team in '87. Watching the Twins out-do the formidable Tigers with the man who taught you the game. Then shedding real tears when you saw the final out of the championship winning moment. And the only thing you could do was pick up the phone to call that same man.

 

Ditto years later.

 

It's all of these things and more. It's pouring over The Sporting News, Baseball Digest, Baseball America, The Star Tribune (when you could grab a copy), all those years with good and crappy radio signals. But amidst all the winning and losing, all the years, all the players and prospects, it was the possibilities that really stand out.  The possibilities brought about by a new spring.

 

Like that young man-boy walking out in to the spring sunshine, filled with hormones, dreams and possibilities, that is baseball. Who's healthy? Who's ready? Who's coming up? What do you think the team will do THIS year?What if...? If only.... 

 

Sometimes it's next year...(sorry Cubs fans)...sometimes it tomorrow when your 90 loss team has a rookie pitcher who throws like an all star in a win. Sometimes it's your 90 loss team that seems to be on the precipice of something more, something better, and your father/son speculate along with a community of friends you share with. Sometimes....it's just day to day...year to year...much like our own lives reflected.

 

Sometimes it's baseball. Sometimes it's life. Sometimes it's actually both.

 

Sometimes I go on too long. But...sometimes the baseball season gets long as well. And then...then...all we can do is wait for spring training to begin.

 

Let it spring...let it spring...let it spring.

 

[curt1965]

I love to read these stories by Doc! No one quite paints these pictures with words like he does. What a gift!

[DocBauer]

I love to read these stories by Doc! No one quite paints these pictures with words like he does. What a gift!

 

I bow and thank you sincerely with a tip of my cap curt. Always  100% from my head and heart.

[DocBauer]

Replying to my own thread but can't help it.

 

70's in Nebraska and the Twins in spring training playing and actually showing early life.

 

I hate to say it....because I'm not sure I should have to...but....come on people. This is spring and spring training. Forget the calendar. We have our own. Time to celebrate a new baseball new year and hoist a brew and dog. What are your thoughts?

 

Let it spring...let it spring...let it spring.