You've heard all of this before. Too many times.
The glory of baseball. The symmetry of baseball. I don't know how many writers and intellectuals have written their own paeans to the game. The fact that the return of baseball every spring is just like life itself -- it keeps coming back, renewed, even though some old voices are silent and new ones have taken their place.
It's all an appealing philosophy, this belief in baseball. And I buy into most of it. I've said many times that baseball is pretty much the only religion I have. It means a lot to me.
But I hate people who try to impose their own personal religious beliefs on other people. You know the type, the drones who come up to you and try to convince you to go to a Bible Study. Those who ask about your beliefs and -- if you don't give them a satisfactory answer -- tell you that you'll be eternally damned if you don't read their cartoon book.
So I try and restrain myself from converting people to baseball. I don't hand out flyers with Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, and Hank Aaron (the holy trinity?) on them, nor do I equate Pete Rose with Jim Bakker.
There are, however, some things that I can't help doing. If I pass someone with a baseball team's logo on their clothing, especially on that holiest of times, opening day, I can't help but giving them a smile. Perhaps a nod of the head. You know, I think to myself. You've found the One True Path.
But I'm not going to explain why I love the game again, especially to someone who has made up their minds that the only gratification sport can provide is from some 300-pound Neanderthal with steroid-soaked muscles falling on top of another man who wears more padding than an arctic explorer in the middle of winter.
Those of you who see body checks and slam dunks as pure excitement, and disdain the pace of baseball as being "boring" can go ahead and watch your favorite sport's playoffs continue for the next several months, until 31 of the 32 postseason qualifiers are eliminated.
Go ahead. Watch all the hockey and basketball you want. It's excitement, but it's also cheap. Baseball, now there's a complex sport.
As someone once said, baseball is dull only to those who are dull themselves.
I think I understand those religious people a little better now.
Would you like to go to a Baseball Study? Here's a schedule. It's at the stadium. You know the way.