On Dusting Off Home Plate

      Baseball is the only game I really know. Oh, I know what basketball and football intend with their baskets and goal posts, and I understand what the goalee’s job is in soccer, but these sports are way too fast for me. Too much racing back and forth on courts and up and down on fields. When I was a kid there was nothing better than sitting in ballpark in the warm sun watching a pitcher wind up and let loose a 90-mile-an-hour fast ball. And when the game was a little slow, as it often was, you could nip out for a beer (or in my case, a coke) and a hotdog. I understood the calls. I knew what a line drive was, a looping fly ball, or a Texas leaguer. Indeed, these were great, growing up years.

      What memory brings up for me now is something the umpire did many times during a game. When home plate got covered over by too much dust and dirt, so much so that it was hard to find its parameters, the umpire would stop the entire course of the game, pull out a dinky little whiskbroom and dust off home plate. Then, of course, things started up again. Over the years I remembered the clever action, but didn’t think a lot about it. In my sports nostalgia, I think about it now because that small act seems so symbolic of the ways in which the rational mind can work.

      As I think back, it now makes perfect sense why home plate had to be kept clear. If a pitcher’s throw was close, it could be very hard to call a ball or strike if the base was not clearly visible. Only the umpire’s eye could be trusted, and he needed the best view he could get. Naturally he protected his view. Recently I have been wondering if this sweet little metaphor could not find its way into our busy lives today.

      We may not be out in the field throwing pitches or catching flies, but we’re doing a lot of dodging and weaving in the course of the day. Now that we have so much technology at our fingertips, we don’t have to move so thoughtfully through what is at hand. Spell check doesn’t catch everything, though, so we still have to proof our own work, and as much as I love the ease of using a computer, sometimes I fear that I am developing its mentality. I want programs and answers to appear in seconds, no searching, no pauses, no hesitations, minimum effort on my part.

      Good thing I still have a little of the quiet, thinking mind still in me. I can stop the harried actions, the mistakes made due to haste. I can remember the meaning of the umpire’s decision to stop the game’s action for a few moments, and I can take time to dust off home plate and be clear again…naturally.