BEHOLD!

...........Frederic Michael Lynn. The Reason I am a Baseball Fan.

This may come off as maudlin, but I'm in one of those moods. So if you don't like maudlin, read no further.

Picture, if you will: The year is 1975. A living room in Lewiston, Maine. A Sunday, high summer. My dad, enjoying his one day off a week, sits in his recliner, with a pilsner glass full of Schlitz beer, and a cigar. The ballgame is on. The Red Sox are playing - I don't remember which team. It doesn't matter.



I'm nine years old, a tomboy, in cutoff shorts, tube socks, 3-stripe Adidas sneakers, rainbow t-shirt, (probably) heading out for a bike ride or a tree climb, or to gather the neighborhood kids to play S.W.A.T. or kickball. I walk past the living room, glancing through the curls of cigar smoke in the afternoon sunshine, towards the television, just as Fred Lynn comes to bat.


Cue romantic music, maybe some violins...no, screw the romantic music, it was more forceful than that. Let's cue...a very loud power chord on an electric guitar. Loud enough to rattle your fillings. Imagine the opening chords of Van Halen's "Everybody Wants Some." Yea, verily, my brothers and sisters...it was LOOOOOOVE. A FIRST love, innocent and pure, and therefore, almost mystically powerful. The kind that pre-dates that for any teen idol or any boyfriend, and therefore the kind of love that stays in your bones, in your DNA, and underlies all others, for the rest of your life. I was absolutely head over heels - in the first blush - of a first crush - on Fred Lynn. Soon this love would expand to the game, and the team, not just the player.

I sit down, watch the at-bat, and stay to watch the rest of the game. I don't remember asking many questions, just watch silently as the game goes on. The basic concepts of the game are fairly simple, and it doesn't take long to understand the objective. Subtleties of strategy and rules will come later, over time, through osmosis, listening to the announcers, conversations with Dad, and playing. I would soon be gathering schoolmates to play the game in the schoolyard (until a school window is broken and we are reprimanded and have to go back to the more window-friendly game of kickball. Oh, sad day.) And soon I would be getting kicked out of CCD for not paying attention to the class, because I was busy trading baseball cards with some kid who it turns out was NOT, Dana Caron, though I thought it was. I wonder where he is these days...


Anyway....to the present:

I was late for work this morning, because Fred was being interviewed on NECN as I was trying to leave the house, and I just HAD to watch for a few minutes. And just seeing him brought me back 32 years, to the day that baseball first entered my consciousness. Never thought of it this way before, but the fact that I remember that day in 1975 so clearly must mean it was a more important moment in my life than I had previously considered. And today's random pass through the living room strangely echoed that day, 32 years ago, when I was introduced to the beauty of the game of baseball, simply because this young, talented, rookie center fielder for the Boston Red Sox...was soooo cute.

So I no longer make fun of the girls who go to the games in pink hats and t-shirts**, or come to the game to spend time with their boyfriends, and latch on because a particular player is good looking, and don't really pay attention to the game or understand the deeper beauty of the sport. I can't tell anyone else how to be a fan, or why they should be a fan. However people come to the game, on whatever level they enjoy it, well...if that's their in, and it leads to some appreciation for what's going on on the field...that's just fine with me.

Now, I have the good fortune to be a season ticket holder, so I'll be there tomorrow for the second of a three-game series against the Yankees. This rivalry is so intense, so virulent at times, that I have no doubt I'll see some shameful behavior by fans of both teams. It's a given at Sox/Yankees games, unfortunately. But I'll also see some kids enjoying the sacred experience of a Saturday at Fenway, watching two of the greatest sports franchises in the country face each other, in an important series, during a playoff race. For those kids, the game is still that beautiful, new, shiny, innocent thing. They don't care how much money the players make, they don't care about steroids, they don't care about what other fans are wearing. HOW FREAKIN' AWESOME IS THAT?

I want to be 9 years old again. And I can't. But at 3:55 tomorrow afternoon, I'll be as close as I can get.

So thank you, Fred Lynn, for bringing the joy of baseball into my world, because this game makes me feel like a 9-year-old kid again, every single time I walk into that park. (Choked up yet? Oh, shut up.)

**Having said that: I don't like pink, and won't wear it, because I prefer to wear the actual colors of the team - though if I were a Marlins fan I'd have issues sporting the turquoise and remember when the Padres wore brown and gold? I mean...blee. But whatever...you pays your money, you makes your choice. I used to make fun of the pink hat wearers, and they do still make me cringe a bit, now I've got more important things to be pissed off about.