“The one constant through all the years…has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game; it’s part of our past…It reminds us of all that one was good and that could be again.” – Terence Mann, “Field of Dreams”

 As the sun yet again begins peeking out from behind the gray winter clouds, bringing with it warm afternoons, blooming flowers and emerald-green grass, there’s no doubt about it – baseball season is coming.

It’s not lost on me that America’s pastime doesn’t hold the same place in everyone else’s heart as it does in my own – indeed, some much prefer the skull-crushing spectacle of football to the calculated grace of a doubleplay or the nail-biting suspense of creeping no-hitter – but baseball season brings with it so much more than the diamond and the game played atop it.

Baseball season brings with it warmer days, backyard cookouts, pool parties and all of the other joyous occasions that accompany the escape from the doldrums of wintertide and proclaim the coming of long, summer nights.

For me, baseball season reanimates the youngster still hiding within me, the one who spent his days playing in overgrown sandlots with imaginary base paths, the one covered in red clay, scrapes and bruises, the one who imagines crashing through the window beside my desk to play a pick-up game on a sunny afternoon.

And, even more so, it’s the season when I first became a parent – my daughter was born on Opening Day in 2013; my wife and I had tickets to see the Montgomery Biscuits take the diamond that day but, instead, heard the fireworks at the end of the game from the hospital where our little girl exploded into the world.

Baseball season is a season of life and renewal, a season to shed the pounds and blues we took on at the end of last year, a season to stretch our legs and arms and tend to the more jubilant aspects of being alive.

Though I can’t play the game like I once could – when I was 10 years old and stationed at second base with my hat pulled low, pounding the leather inside my glove and waiting on a grounder to come my way – I can still find immense pleasure in the game of my youth, the game that still survives there, reignites my spirit and exists like an inheritance for me to pass to my children.

I can enjoy it from the dugout, where I’ll be stationed with a camera and a notepad ready to document each inning for the local readership; I can enjoy it from the stands, where I’ll sit alongside my children, describing the tactics and techniques while sipping at a soda and gnawing at a burger; I can enjoy it from my backyard, where my brother and I will throw the baseball and show our sons how to do the same.

Yes, baseball season is upon us – let’s celebrate.