Quote:
Originally Posted by jingram058
Well, you put an awful lot of thought and work into this. I like stuff like this. You have to open your mind, and put your thinking cap on, in order to keep up.
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Hey Jim -- I really appreciate that. I hope its clear that none of this is out of an attempt to be opaque or to be obtuse but to really deeply honor and give full attention to the meaning of baseball, and to put this down to honor our players, our game, and our communities. Baseball brought our country (as well as places like Cuba) through incredibly difficult, intense, and harsh domestic and global circumstances. Players like Lefty Grove became legends from the coal mines; from nothing but throwing rocks and honing their skills in these small early mining towns. They stood for communities that had to band together to survive these brutal and thankless conditions.
That's the legacy to honor and to acknowledge. And yes -- I think in that sense it requires our presence and opening our minds. To understand their world and how it relates to ours; to understand just how important baseball really is and was. And what it gave and gives people at the deepest level. Not much of that is very apparent to the naked eye all the time, so it requires that added level of work and vision to perceive a great deal of that power. Because its still there -- in the cards, in the old architecture of the mining and factory towns; in the legacies of players like Grove, Walsh, and Mantle. It was never just about their stats or the fact that they were stars and legends of the game -- it was and is about their whole humanity. Where they came from, the trials they faced, and how they rose through it and became examples of what is possible for those who had nothing and dealt with the harshest conditions of their times.