Looking for spring

Baseball fans are known to look forward to the beginning of spring with a special enthusiasm. In February 1971 John Hutchens wrote in De Tijd“He’s starting to come out of his cotton wool haze, the hopelessly addicted baseball fan for whom life – if that’s the word for it – hasn’t amounted to much since the last appearance of the 1970 World Series.” This is the kind of hyperbolic perspective on the seasons that I identify with. I’m not a die-hard baseball fan, but I know the pain Hutchens writes about, the way life seems to be on hold during the winter months.

Jerry Kraus, a snowbird from Utica, N.Y., who works in Clover Park during spring training, seemed to have the right idea, heading from the Northeast to Florida when the weather turned dicey. He was so in sync with the spring spirit that he caught a foul ball right in his hand. (Baseball isn’t Jerry’s only sport; he runs a Wordle competition in which contestants are given rules for letters they can’t use for their first word. The day I met him the rule was “No Worries,” so your first guess may not contain the letters W, O, R, I, E or S.)

In his 1990 book “Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball,” George Will described the game as “unhurried” or “relaxed,” calling such observations “nonsense on stilts.” For the players, he writes, “there is barely enough time between pitches for all the thinking required.” But to this casual observer, “no worries” could be baseball’s official motto. When you’re outside in the sun and fresh air, things feel slower and easier. Worrying slows down. I love that baseball has long been considered America’s national pastime. A pastime is something that makes the passage of time enjoyable. Isn’t that what we long for during the winter months? Something that makes the time not only bearable, but also enjoyable?

By the time I left Florida it was raining and even a little cold. How was I going to bring spring home with me, I wondered angrily. It was still raining in New York when I landed. Of course, spring is not just about the weather, and it certainly doesn’t promise rain. I’m trying to resist the cliché, to avoid saying something like “spring is a state of mind,” even though I’d like to.

I went looking for spring and found it where spring breakers find it every year, already in full, exuberant swing in the Sunshine State. My own official abandonment of woolen garments and condemnation of seasonal funk will take place on Tuesday, when spring finally arrives. But now that I’ve experienced 24 hours of the spring spectacle, my own little preseason, I feel somewhat reassured. Maybe I can be patient as spring arrives, and offer the season a little grace as it falls into place. (temperature in NYC as I write this: 36 degrees, but there is clear blue between the clouds.)