The Baseball Solstice draws nigh. This Sunday, Dec. 29, marks the midpoint between the end of the World Series and the beginning of Spring Training games in Arizona and Florida.
Just as Rocky Balboa “invented” the names “Cuff” and “Link” for his turtles, I invented the baseball solstice in 2011 as I contemplated disconsolately the long winter ahead without the crack of the bat. As I saw it, since at least the time of the Druids humans have been figuring out ways to hold a party in the midst of the coldest months of the year. Why should we baseball fans be any different?
How to mark the occasion? In the past I’ve suggested that people engage in some sort of “baseball activity.” That could mean hauling out an old record album or VHS tape of some past season of your favorite team — 1995 Indians, anyone? — and reliving the glory (or near glory, in the case of Cleveland). If you’re lucky enough to live in a climate where you can play ball any month, by all means go outside and play catch with your dad or your kids. And if you’re stuck in ice-bound Maine or Michigan, get out the Strat-O-Matic board and roll the dice to re-enact a great season past.
You could even dig out your old mitt and give it a restorative leather treatment. Merely picking it up and smelling the leather will get you in the mood for the 2014 season.
The important thing on the solstice is to do something meaningful involving baseball, even if it’s merely sitting in an easy chair and pondering the warm memories of Little League games in which you made multiple errors (sometimes on one play) or that fantastic evening you had at Fenway Park when the Yankees and the Red Sox went at it hammer and tong.
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