Just Any Other Game?

   Baseball is just a game.  Tell this to an eight year old who is putting on his uniform for the first time, or a journeyman minor leaguer hanging on for the love of the game.  Then there are the Major Leaguers, such as Aaron Rowand who sacrificed his body, smashing into the center field fence at Citizens Bank Park in 2006 with the Phillies.  It's true--baseball is just a game--but to some it's so much more.
   The love of the game usually starts at a very young age.  A young boy cannot wait for his father to get home from work to play catch in the backyard.  Then after dinner listen to stories of teams and players of generations past.  He can imagine Ted Williams' swing, Mickey Mantle making a catch in center field and Brooks Robinson making a diving stab at third base, all without ever seeing these greats play.  As time passes he starts to collect baseball cards, magazines, and play Little League Ball.  He cannot wait to get on the field and play third base like Mike Schmidt, or shortstop like Ozzie Smith.  If he could do a backflip onto the field he would.  The dreams of playing in the big leagues seem almost like a reality in his overactive and vivid imagination. 
   Then that young boy grows up to a world of responsibility and preparation to become a young adult, but he never gives up on his childhood dream.  It is that vision that makes him work that much harder in the gym and on the high school field, then into college.  His teammates become his brothers.  He learns what mental toughness is and the strategy that makes baseball such a great game.
   Some players are talented and lucky enough to make it to the next level after college.  Then there are some who simply become fans of the game.  They go to the ballparks to cheer on their heroes.  They tell their children stories of great teams and players of their generation, and even a few old stories that they remember from when they were young, sitting on the porch listening to their fathers.  Like Jim Bouton wrote in his book "Ball Four"--"You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."