Baseball is Back for 2012

What could be more American than baseball? And today is Opening Day, that feast of baseball excess which leads us into spring and summer days of sun and fun.

The Detroit Tigers take on the Boston Red Sox at Comerica Park this afternoon at 1:05, officially inaugurating the 2012 season locally. The sun is expected to be shining and, although it will be on the chilly side, the hearts of Detroiters will be warmed by the glow of the National Pastime.

Let the fans of the other major sports, especially the footballers, say what they will; baseball is the game of Americans. It was played as recreation during lulls in the Civil War. It was played in earlier forms during the colonial and revolutionary periods of our history. It is provincial, and that is one of its key strengths. So more people may watch the Super Bowl; that's merely because it is one game, and many if not most watchers are more concerned with the party than the athletic event anyway. But baseball fans watch the World Series more intently when their team is involved. No fair weather fans there. No false fans untrue to their locale as with so many Super Bowl and even BCS 'fans'.

What's more, it's the game which best displays the natural conservatism of Americans. Everyone plays as a team but also has to go out there as an individual; you field, where your prowess depends upon your skill but also your teammates positioning and anticipation. You bat or pitch, which gives you the chance to produce on your own. It's Americana at its best.

Welcome, baseball! Welcome, harbinger of the bright days of summer! Welcome back, National Pastime! We have the summer to ourselves, unspoiled by those other games, those pretenders to our hearts. Baseball is America, baseball is back, and go Detroit Tigers!

The National Pastime begins a New Season

Baseball is continuity. Pitch to pitch. Inning to inning. Game to game. Series to series. Season to Season.

- Ernie Harwell

No, those are not the usual words with which Mr. Harwell used to inaugurate a new baseball season. Yet they serve as a reminder, in this first full season without him, that the game goes on. Even the great ones such as Ernie Harwell recognize and love that aspect of the game. It is always with us in a way in which the other major sports simply are not.

The 2011 season begins today. That continuity which he spoke about goes on. That triumph of Americana begins again. The first pitch will come today in many areas, tomorrow in others, but it comes. The Boys of Summer are here, and no doubt Ernie has the best seat in the house.

Play ball!

It Will Always Be the Same.

"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

Today baseball begins. Today at 1:05 in Dunedin, Florida, the Detroit Tigers begin their Grapefruit League play against the Toronto Blue Jays. And before the broadcast, I have to believe that we will hear the Voice of the Tigers, Ernie Harwell, recite the above quote from the Song of Solomon. It will be from a recording, of course, as we lost Ernie last May.

It would be so easy to say that baseball will never be the same. Yet we know he wouldn't tell us that. We know he would not want us to feel that way. The game goes on, life goes on, the Earth still spins. And baseball will still be played.

Ernie would want that. So we should want that.

It is my first season without him, and it will be bittersweet. But the game goes on, and he goes on. Things are as they should be.

God bless you, Ernie.