This was worth passing on I felt. The mystique of the empty ball park. From Dave Pell of the daily Next Draft blog. With games starting later this week and a piece like this, I'm starting to get more a more positive attitude that winter will loosen her claws on us northerners.

Back to the Ballgame
It happened once before. But back then,
I almost went looking for it. I was working
summers as a sports producer for a local television
station and spent endless afternoons sitting in
the Bay Area's then wholly unsatisfying baseball
stadiums. So when I went to visit my sister in
Chicago and had a free afternoon, I took a walk
in search of a neighborhood ballpark on the
outskirts of town. Chicago was experiencing one
of it's worst heat-waves in years, and the streets
around Wrigley, and everywhere else, were mostly
empty other than me, postal employees and the
occasional handful of young, thin-tie wearing,
pasty-faced teens going door-to-door preaching the
gospel of some religion that on this day wasn't
worth hearing about if it meant cracking open the
front door and letting slip out a few gulps of
air-conditioned cool.

Even in the heat, even on a long walk all alone, even
though in the back of my mind I knew that my interest
in baseball was transitory, Wrigley was worth the effort;
even just from the outside, even on a sweltering day when
the team was away. Just about all the way around the park
I saw the unexpected. An open gate. There had to be some
workers just around the corner, or a security guard
standing watch, or a ticket-taker who with a particularly
dark hangover looked askance at his calendar and was too
exhausted to wonder why his was the only attended turnstile.
But there was no one. Only a dangling, unlocked chain and
just enough space for me to squeeze through. I nervously
walked up the steps towards a section of box seats between
home and first. And there I stood. Alone in the ballpark
except for a single gardener trimming the ivy that covered
the outfield fence. I breathed it all in for awhile.
These moments don't come around too often.

Nearly two decades later, my solo performance at Wrigley
was the last thing on my mind as, under my umbrella,
I stepped carefully through the gathered ice and slush along
the sidewalks near Fenway Park. I had time to kill, so I decided
to take a walk from the Boston Commons, down past the
magical walk-ups lining Beacon Street, past the Harvard
Bridge, then a brief respite at a Bruegger's Bagels, and
then onto the lofts opposite Fenway where my friend Arthur
had lived years before. I groaned in sympathy for some
soaked yellow-slickered construction workers who
rat-tat-tatted the sidewalks opposite the Green Monster.

It was, really, the last thing on my mind as I mostly
gazed downwards to protect my eyes from the unfortunate
angle of the now-frozen rain. But there it was. So many
years later. In such a different place with many different
memories. And most of all, a totally different me. Or
at least I thought, until I felt that familiar feeling
and remembered that young guy on an overheated walk alone
when he shared an anything-is-possible moment with
Chicago's most famous hedge clipper. But there it was,
just across the street. A wide open entrance into Fenway
Park. This time, with workers all around the area, it
was clear that there would have to be a group of hard hats
just waiting for a west coast softy to wander within range
of some old-school Boston chatter. But as I collapsed my
umbrella and tip-toed across the street and through the
gate, there was no one. No one between me and the steps
to the centerfield bleachers.

So there I stood. It was only for a moment, but the moment
was soon as frozen as the three day old layer of ice left
From Boston's once-in-decade storm of the week before. There
was the Green Monster in left field. The press box behind
the plate. The snow-covered field. Memory added the rest
like the smell of real baseball pretzels (Salt? Of course
salt!) and the sound of the gameday announcer who with a thick,
matter-of-fact Boston accent announces twice the last name
of each batter.

Like I said, I'm not into baseball. But I am into history.
I am into east coast cities. I am into the meaning of
places. And I am, I now realize, into re-connecting
with that kid who wandered into Wrigley when there was
really nothing to look at other than ivy trimmings and
what seemed like endless tomorrows. So I breathed it all in.
This time, so much deeper, because I know what these moments
mean. When your eyes glaze for all the right reasons. And
after a few minutes, I lowered my face from the pelting
rain and made my way back down the steps, back towards a
long walk to kill some time. Opposite me, I was approached
by a young couple who had gingerly followed my earlier course.
They must have thought I worked at the park and they had been
caught because the red-faced, knuckle-cracking guy asked if it
was all right if they just took a quick look. I smiled and told
them to go right ahead. Behind me, a few seconds later, I could
hear them both giggle as they reached the top of the steps.