Baseball Strikes Out on Politics
You can’t escape politics anywhere now - not even in America’s once great pastime, baseball.
A “pastime,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably.”
Boy, did the Pittsburgh Pirates accomplish that for me most of my early life.
Pirates radio broadcasts on KDKA were background music throughout Western Pennsylvania when I grew up in the ‘70s and baseball was weaved happily and deeply into the fabric our young lives.
In the summer I heard the voice of Pirates play-by-play man Bob Prince echoing from half a dozen porch radios in my neighborhood.
I loved hearing my dad and Uncle Mike talk about the Pirates improbable World Series victory over the Yankees in 1960.
I remember the warm, sunny autumn of 1971, when I spent hours listening to a small transistor radio as the Pirates won the World Series again.
Though the Pirates have been underwhelming in recent decades, my high school friends - all of us sharing a happy connection to baseball - have made it a point each year to enjoy a reunion or two at PNC Park.
A hot dog, an ice-cold beer and the camaraderie of life-long friends always offered a welcome respite to the stresses and strains of our daily, middle-aged lives.
But such an escape is no longer possible because of people who insist on injecting their political demands into every moment of our waking lives - including baseball.
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Copyright 2021 Tom Purcell, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com
