The big screen lights up and video of one of baseball’s great moments—the night Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record by smacking number 715 here in Atlanta—begins to play. The more than 41,000 people in attendance grow silent, in reverence, and then cheer just as if that moment still was unfolding and not more than 50 years in the past.
This is part of baseball’s enduring appeal.
No other sport collapses time so much, with the present enveloping, absorbing and reaffirming the past. It is impossible to go to the ballpark without embracing memories of games, plays and players gone by.
My son and I came to this year’s all-star contest because we’re baseball fans. The love he developed for the game as a young boy kindled one for me, a passion fanned by the endless hours we spent together while I threw batting practice for him and hit him one fungo after another.
This game marks the 22nd major-league ballpark we’ve been to, along with another score of minor-league fields.
The crowd gathered here is decked out in an array of team jerseys, t-shirts and ball caps. Every major-league franchise is represented, including some that no longer exist.
As we walk to our seats, I notice a guy wearing a jersey and cap bearing the logo of the Montreal Expos, a team that transplanted itself to Washington, D.C. two decades ago.
On the way into the ballpark, we talked with a woman who transplanted herself to Atlanta from Chicago. She was from the south side of the Windy City and said her father was an ardent White Sox fan.
But then she went on a small soliloquy about the differences between White Sox and Cubs fans. She described how the differing loyalties prompted much friendly debate and endless joshing.
At that point, my son said that my father—his grandfather—loved the Cubs. My dad’s dead now, along with my younger brother, who was a devoted Cincinnati Reds fan.
For a moment, though, they’re back with and before me, talking baseball, analyzing their respective teams’ chances and either lauding or disparaging this player’s or that player’s contributions on the field.
Past folding into present again.
My son and I are both Cleveland Guardians fans.
I was born in Cleveland. Cleveland’s team name then was the Indians. I became a Tribe fan because the first major-league game I ever saw was an Indians game my father took me to before I was even old enough to go to school.
The first game my son ever saw was an Indians game his father took him to well before he entered kindergarten.
One of my fondest memories is of a weekend when I took my father and my son to Cleveland to see some baseball. My boy was still little then, and my father was already in his 80s.
One morning, we drove to the shabby duplex where we lived when Dad took me to my first game. My son wanted to have a game of catch, so we grabbed our gloves, tumbled out of the car and began tossing the ball back and forth, father to son to grandson and back again, on the rundown playground near where my father first taught me how to hold a bat.
Past folding into present again.
My son is a grown man now and my father is more than two years gone. Time evaporates so quickly.
When my son and I settle into our seats, which are up so high behind home plate that the batter’s box looks like a postage stamp, a guy wearing an unbuttoned Cubs jersey finds his spot two rows in front of us.
Under the jersey, he wears a t-shirt proclaiming that a certain Wednesday game was the greatest in baseball history—a reference to the night the Cubs defeated the Indians to win the 2016 World Series, one of the finest ever played.
My son and I exchange glances. That was a night that broke our hearts.
But at least my dad was happy.
In the middle of the seventh inning, the huge crowd sings, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Standing next to my son, I think, “Yes, please do.”
Take me out to the ballgame.
