The Sounds of Summer

I’ve never been a huge baseball fan. Sure I grew up going to the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, watching Orioles games … I remember Earl Weaver being their manager, and when Eddie Murry was an Oriole. . . I’ve been to a few games at Camden Yard – beautiful ball park, and I’ve been to Yankee Stadium as well as Wrigley Field. I’m happy to be able to say this. And yes, despite that the team sucks, Royals Stadium (still hard for me to think of it as Kauffman Stadium, even though Mr. Kauffman was a great man and did GREAT things for this city) is also a beautiful park, especially given the fact that it’s 30+ years old. Those fountains out in the outfield are breathtaking … but it’s the sounds of baseball that will always remind me of summer … in the summertime visiting my father meant either watching or listening to (if we were in the car) Orioles games on the radio. The other night I was driving around, windows down – for some unknown reason, listening to the Royals game … I just had to stop and think that it doesn’t get much more summery than driving around, listening to baseball on the radio … I don’t know what the appeal is – it isn’t as exciting as listening to Mitch Holtus call a Chiefs game (another post in and of itself), but just something calming, and totally summery about it, no matter how badly the Royals suck.