The Loggers...

Through the kindness of parishioners I had the chance to attend a baseball game following Vespers on Saturday night.

Although I never played it much as a kid (I grew up in a football town) over the years I've come to truly enjoy baseball games. My wife and I basically bought our satellite dish just to get the Twins games in on Fox Sports North, and the XM Radio in my car is often set right to channel 175, the one with all the Major League scores. If somehow we won the lottery the one vacation we would take is the package where you can travel for a month and see all the major league teams play. This past winter I even followed the world baseball tournament with about, apparently, three other people here in the US.

The local team in LaCrosse is called the Loggers in honor of the fact that LaCrosse came to prominence largely through the timber industry. The team is an amateur team comprised of people from various colleges who wish to keep their baseball dreams alive by playing summer ball in a small circuit of similar teams. In lieu of pay they are housed with local families both at home and on the road and when the season is done they return to college.

That kind of team hearkens back to a day when many towns had a local nine and the pride of the city was often on the line when teams met. On this night, even for this level of play, over 3000 fans from LaCrosse came to see the Loggers play the Green Bay Bullfrogs. Cars filled the streets around St. Elias, less than a half city block away from the field, and some came for miles to see the Loggers play. Our seats were in the first row behind the home dug out, great for catching foul balls and so close you could hear the players cough.

But alas is was not to be. The introductions done, the national anthem sung, there was only time for a handful of pitches before the first drops of rain began to fall. Soon it was a torrent, a storm that rushed across the river valley from Minnesota without stopping until the field was soaked beyond repair for the night. It was a good rain, a needed rain, but I still felt a kind of an "Oh rats..." feeling inside as I walked toward my car.

I know there is scandal in the world, and trouble, and things that aren't right. I'm a Priest and sometimes I have to wallow in it all as part of the job. I even know that baseball is sometimes messed up with chemically enhanced players getting obscene salaries to produce pumped up statistics. Even so there is something about a night under the stars with the sounds and sights and smells of a baseball game that's like a tonic to me. And last Saturday I only got the slightest taste of it, but I do have a schedule in my pocket and with the best seat in the house costing just $7 I know I'll be back. Soon.