Our stadiums are silent, aching in their emptiness. Yet in the echo of an empty stadium, in these times as in past, there is hope.
If you sit in an empty stadium you can still smell the fresh cut grass, hear the call of the hotdog vender, sense the crack of the bat, experience the roar of the crowd, and imagine a play at the plate.
Oh, a play at the plate! Everyone holds their breath. The unspoken and uniting focus of every fan in the stadium is on one question: Will the catcher make the tag or will the runner be safe at home?
Safe. At home. We have heard a lot about being safe at home lately.
Sit with me in our silent stadium for moment. (Three seats and 6 feet away please.) Let me tell you a tale of an extraordinary moment in time with a lesson for our time.
Legend has it that Sparky, the surly old manager of the hometown team, loved to challenge his players at the most inopportune times. On this night, the night of the championship, Sparky decided to test his all-star third baseman, Ron.
Ron was the MVP and one of the best third baseman to ever play the game. Ron had never played any position other than third base. Ever. From the time he first laced up his cleats as a 6-year-old starting in T-ball, third base was all Ron had ever known.
With the home crowd whipped into a frenzy, the umpire yells, “Play ball!”
The crowd erupts in excitement. But before the pitcher sets to throw the first pitch, Manager Sparky calls time out and trots onto the field, heading straight to third base.
Looking Ron in the eye Sparky growls, “I’m switching you to first base!” Ron responds in protest that he has never, ever, played first base.
Sparky grins: “Then it is your lucky night. Now get over there — we have a game to win.”
The game begins. The pitcher throws the first pitch and the batter smashes a hot ground ball toward first that bounces right at Ron’s head. Extraordinary reflexes allow him to somehow stop the ball, but he is knocked to the ground.
Ron jumps to his feet and picks up the ball a bit dazed and confused. All he needs to do is step on first base and the batter would be out. But Ron is thinking like a third basemen. As the crowd screams he looks around and sees the batter running right at him. So, like any good third baseman, Ron starts running at the batter.
The batter, confused, spins around to run back toward home. A classic “hot-box” ensues with the crowd’s howling adding to the chaos and puzzlement of the players.
Finally, the runner sprints back toward the plate and slides into home. The catcher applies the tag and the umpire yells, “You’re out!”
The grinning catcher looks up at the umpire and asks, “What would you have called if he were safe?”
The runner simply couldn’t be safe at home. He didn’t go around the bases touching first, then second, then third and then home. In baseball, as in a pandemic, things have to be done in order, in order to produce the proper result — to return safely home.
The nation cannot jump from “shelter in place” to full engagement any more than a baseball player can run directly from first to home. There are rules to fighting this pandemic.
From our seats in the still empty stadium, we can hear hope in the echo of the booming voice of James Earl Jones from the movie “Field of Dreams.”
“The one constant through all the years … has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game — it’s a part of our past. ... It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”
We’re only in the fifth inning. The game is not yet won. There are weeks and months of change ahead. COVID-19 is no game, of course. But the principle is the same. Work together. Understand what’s required. Return to the ballpark. And return safely home.