“Take me out to the ball game” is my blog on major-league ballparks and the wonders of witnessing America’s favorite pastime up close.

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By Bobby Ross Jr.

Ray. People will come, Ray.

They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.

“Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say. “It’s only $20 per person.”

They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it — for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers, sit in their shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon.

And they’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game. And it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters.

The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

People will come, Ray.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, 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 a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again.

Ohhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

— James Earl Jones (“Field of Dreams,” 1989)

Opening Day is Monday.

It’s New Year’s, Christmas and the Fourth of July wrapped into one.

All will be right with the world again, Ray. All will be most definitely right.

Continue reading “Opening Day 2015: ‘People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come’”

“Take me out to the ball game” is my blog on major-league ballparks and the wonders of witnessing America’s favorite pastime up close.

• • •

By Bobby Ross Jr.

Hey baseball fans, how cool would this be?

Sports on Earth senior writer Will Leitch has devised the “ultimate baseball trip.”

https://twitter.com/williamfleitch/status/575367701763350528

Leitch writes:

Every fan dreams of this. We look at Spring Training now, and we know the season is coming. It would only be appropriate that once baseball truly begins again, we celebrate with the ultimate indulgent celebrations. Imagine it: 30 stadiums in (roughly) 30 days. What a way to live! People would write novels about you.

Sounds terrific, but I must take issue with one point: I’d write my own novel.

Continue reading “Best month of baseball ever: hit all 30 MLB ballparks in roughly 30 days”