IT'S that depressing time of year again. Baseball gloves and
magic go hand in handReality has finally set in -- the basketball season is over. Real basketball. College basketball. Not this ego-ball currently being participated in by overpaid multimillionaires.
I miss college basketball. And college volleyball, too.
But every year about this time, I rediscover baseball. It's such a great game.
Baseball is what this country used to be all about. Life between the lines, where you know where the foul pole is.
There's no gray area in the sport. You either hit the ball or you don't. You either catch it or you don't.
It's a simple game surviving in a complex world.
In the library of sport, baseball is a book of poetry.
I revisited one of those poems last month. My 4-year-old nephew had his first tee-ball practice and I was lucky enough to be there.
My sister-in-law didn't know Vince needed a glove that first day. So while he got grass stains on his knees, we went shopping for a mitt.
It wasn't expensive. It wasn't flashy. It wasn't signed by any all-star.
But to Vince, it was magic. It turned a little boy into a ball player.
Afriend ran the mitt out to Vince as he stood somewhere between center field and the boundaries of possibility. He threw a few punches into the webbing, just like a pro, then yelled, "Hey, Mom, can I keep this?"
That glove went to dinner with us. He took it to bed that night.
The only burning question he had was, "Can we do it again tomorrow?" When told yes, Vince closed his eyes and smiled. His field of dreams were sweet that night.
What I like about baseball are the memories. Soccer was the first sport I was exposed to -- my uncle played striker for a successful club team. I was maybe 4, about Vince's age, and those early memory clips are of grass, a ball and a bunch of feet.
But I vividly remember watching baseball on TV with my dad, and laughing about the cartoon bear in the beer commercials. It didn't make me a beer drinker, but it made me a baseball fan.
It's a feeling I share with Iolani baseball coach Dean Yonamine. After the Raiders won a third state title Saturday, Yonamine spoke of how great it was to have his father, Ken, in the dugout as a volunteer coach.
"He's the one that taught me about baseball when I was growing up," Yonamine said.
THERE'S a certain calmness to the sport. It's a road more like the one to Hana instead of the freeway we all seem to be driving on these days, all going over the speed limit with our hectic lives.
Hawaii Winter Baseball league owner Duane Kurisu once pointed out that there are 88 stitches on the seam of a baseball. The same number as a Buddhist monk's meditation beads.
Baseball is a thinking game, one where you have time to think. About the next pitch, the next play, the next out. It's a game that truly is never over until the third out.
Of all the sports my son plays, I hope he sticks with baseball. There are many lessons learned through athletics, but baseball imparts a unique brand of wisdom.
I'm not sure where Tiff's first baseball glove is now. My husband gave it to a youngster who didn't have one, telling him it had magic in it.
Sure enough, that little boy turned into a baseball player.
I can only hope that the glove's been passed on to another young player so that he or she can find the magic of the sport.
Someone once sang of life being a circle game. I think it's more in the shape of a diamond.
Cindy Luis is a Star-Bulletin sportswriter.
Her column appears weekly.