Baseball, America, and peace

Ben Cox

The first of these simple entertainments was baseball. Bud Selig, baseball's commissioner immediately suspended baseball's schedule through Thursday. Then on Thursday, Selig followed the NFL's lead and postponed this weekend's games. The schedule will resume Monday and the postponed games will be made up at the end of the season.

This great American tragedy sent shockwaves and heartaches throughout the world and, especially, the sports world.

All-Star shortstop, Rich Aurilla, of the San Francisco Giants, who is deeply entrenched in a wild card race with local favorites Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, said, "I don't think anyone on the team is thinking about baseball. I don't think anybody wants to play. I think everyone just wants to be with their families."

And rightfully so. Aurilla has two family members who live in Brooklyn and several college friends who work in the World Trade Center. Aurilla commented later that he expected only the worst.

Baseball seems always to set the precedent for athletics whenever a national tragedy sends shockwaves through the United States. In 1988, San Francisco was rocked by one of the largest earthquakes in American history. The Giants and the Oakland A's were in the midst of a "Battle of the Bay" World Series when the fault line slipped and the earthquake struck. Players on both teams ran for cover inside the stadium. The game was finished three days later, after the late baseball commissioner Bart A. Giammanti suspended play for the players and for the decency of society.

Baseball remains America's game for these reasons. I could go on and on about the humanity baseball has shown in instances of America's triumphs and tragedies. MLB continues to unite people of all races under the roofs of their stadiums, through lenses of video cameras that show games around the world, and through compassion to human kind by maintaining the national reputation of "America's National Pastime." It's not just a pastime in America, but also in nations around the world.

When Americans watch baseball and its heroes, they are reminded that the men who play the game are human. They feel human feelings and they do human things. That is why is baseball is great. That is why baseball makes real, human men superhuman heroes, by reaching out through the game of baseball with compassion, courage, respect, honor and peace.

Next time, when you watch a baseball game, remember: by grace, those men, playing that game of baseball, feel the same feelings, hurt like you hurt, and do the things that you do. They work and entertain to make all who watch them happy and try to make this chaotic world, for nine innings seem like a memory, while they take you out to the ball game.

So now, I would like to thank the game of baseball and the great men who play it. I would like to thank them for their compassion and thank them for trying, even for a moment, in these trying times in the world, to make our lives a little bit happier by catching a ball, hitting one over the fence, or striking out a player in the bottom of the ninth.

Thank you baseball. You definitely have hit a grand slam into the hearts and lives of all your fans. May you all pray for the victims in America's terrorist attacks on Tuesday and continue to pray for the world's safety. Baseball may seem materialistic in nature but the people that play it for a living, make it a real and lasting pastime that takes everyone away for just awhile to a world where dreams still come true.

Ben Cox is a freshman in LAS. He can be reached at sports@dailyillini.com.

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