I took this photo and wrote this more than a decade ago. Tonight, Americans will put aside their differences and watch a baseball game. This is why:

This has been a great year. A year of highs and lows. Of sweet memories and bitter disappointment. This picture is one of my favorites from the year … the hands of the JV squad joined together before a game. Such hope. Such promise.

When I think back to all the times I’ve spent with my children at ballparks over the years it seems like I’ve spent a lifetime there … and it’s gone by in the blink of an eye. I’ve eaten some great hamburgers and some bad hotdogs at the ballparks. Our children and our team have brought us together. Many of us would never have met otherwise.

 There is a timeless quality to a baseball game … a suspension of time. Baseball is the only major team sport without a clock. It’s the only major team sport where the defense starts every play with the ball. It is a game of finesse and power, of speed and deliberation, of individual effort and teamwork. One mighty swing, one errant throw can change the course of a game in the blink of an eye.

It has been such a joy to watch these young men grow and develop over time. One of the players from last year was at the ballpark today and it was like seeing an old friend. We shook hands and in that handshake were all the memories of last year and of this year and of all the memories yet to be.

We will never regret our hours at the ballpark. We will remember the wins and forget the losses. We will come across a picture in a box some distant day and we will feel the dust of the field in our mouths, we will remember our children standing in the closely-mown grass and we will remember these timeless days with sadness and longing.

Bill Fletcher

May 11, 2004