A blast from a Spring past..
Listening to spring training baseball on the radio, and eagerly welcoming opening for this season, I am struck once again by the intricate connections between bluegrass and baseball.
This time, it was the pace and attitude I noticed. Baseball, unlike most sports, has a pace set by the players, not a game clock, and this is part of the appeal of the game for fans (and for some folks, a reason to DISlike the game.) This pace fits the lazy feel of spring and summer to a T and I remember being aware of it at a very young age.
When Lon Simmons passed away a few years ago it brought back memories from as far back as I remember. Early 1960’s, sunny days (rare in San Bruno) and the sounds of Lon Simmons and Russ Hodges, made tinny by transistor radios, intermixed with the sound of push mowers up and down the block. Nobody had a power mower back in 1962, it seemed. Doesn’t the smell of freshly mown grass go perfectly with baseball?
But it would be a mistake to equate the leisurely pace of baseball with any lack of intensity. The pitcher who slows down the game with men on base as he stares down the batter, and who disrupts the pitcher’s mental preparation by stepping out of the box to blink his eyes, adjust his gloves or knock the dirt off his cleats – both are being very competitive and intense, despite little physical movement.
Watch a group of pickers at a jam, and there’s a similar relaxed atmosphere. Interestingly, nearly all bluegrass pickers pick up a Southern accent by the second day of a festival, and that drawl is part and parcel of the pace.
“It’s yer call, Joe.”
“Is it now? Wellll, lessee, I reckon we oughta play “Little Miss Blue Eyes”, in A”
(There is a brief – yet leisurely – adjustment of capos and sips of beverages)
“OK, then. Here we go: one, two, three..”
Then, the intensity emerges from that genteel exchange and the song is underway. Subtle messages are passed with head nods, murmured asides and raised eyebrows, and the sounds of bluegrass filter up to the tops of the trees, intermixed with the smell of lawn, barbecue smoke and clay.
Just like the pitcher/batter battle, this routine is repeated over and over, and just as in baseball, it’s a sublime thrill for the players and the onlookers.
Thank you, spring! Thank you, summer! Thank you, baseball! Thank you, bluegrass!
