Make baseball, not war: Returning to a pastime

To the most devoted of baseball fans, two particular days in the early spring bring only the best of feelings. These harbingers of joy, which vary each year by a day or two — baseball has always been on the Hebrew calendar — have always been entrenched in my head as February 22nd and April 1st. Both holidays, indeed, but not in celebration of the birth of our first president and tomfoolery, respectively; rather, they celebrate the day that pitchers and catchers report to spring training and, secondly, Opening Day.

Among baseball's great and arcane traditions is that pitchers and catchers annually show up at spring training two or three days before everyone else. A more well-known custom, with which (if you've ever been to a baseball game) you are probably familiar, is the Seventh Inning Stretch. In 1910 — or so the story goes — President Taft had completed his presidential duty by throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Senators' game, and, at the end of six-and-a-half innings, became uncomfortable in his undersized seat. When Taft stood to stretch his legs, the rest of his row — and subsequently, the rest of stadium — stood as well, thinking he was going to leave. He remained standing until play was set to resume; hence, so did they, and a tradition was born. (Other less dramatic stories suggest the practice, based on cricket's "tea interval," has been around as long as baseball has.)

Whenever the practice began, it was at some point augmented by the singing of the ballpark standard "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." That tradition, whenever it began, continued largely uninterrupted until last fall when, in a moment of patriotic fervor, it was replaced with "God Bless America," usually performed by a torch singer, boys' choir, or aging rock star. That, I admit, was tolerable. Baseball, after all, remains America's national pastime, no matter what anyone says to the contrary, and I was willing to put up with the intrusion of a little politicking if it meant that the season would not be cancelled.

Indeed, the season went on, because — as everyone from President Bush to the usher who showed me to my seat last fall at Shea Stadium reminded me — if we stop playing baseball, the Taliban Terrorists win. And, by and large, I agreed. But during the offseason, Taliban management made some bad personnel decisions, saw their major league roster decimated, and their minor league systems put out of business. During spring training, missiles rained down upon their outfield like fungoes and, now, at the beginning of the season, the Taliban is picked to finish a distant sixth in the AL East, behind even the Orioles. In fact, they're in serious danger of being contracted.

And yet, lo and behold, as the middle of the seventh inning dawned in a recent game with my beloved Mets ahead of the Pirates, 4-1, who strode out to home plate at Shea Stadium but aging rocker Art Garfunkel, enlisted to sing the summertime classic, the ballpark favorite, the traditional feel-good baseball jingle, "God Bless America."

Is it not reason enough to end this practice that 20 or 30 percent of all major leaguers are not American citizens? What about the healthy percentage of the fans who are foreigners? What about those of us who get all our patriotism out during the traditional pre-game rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner?" Enough already. It's been over six months now. It's a new season, a time of hope and rebirth both on and off the ballfield. I'm not suggesting we forget about what happened, or diminish it, but let's recall that post-September 11th rallying cry: If the terrorists make us change the way we live, then they win. Bring back "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," for everyone's benefit. Keep the Terrorists in last place. Dan Wachtell '02 is a philosophy major from Rye, N.Y. He can be reached at wachtell@princeton.edu.