By: Noel Roby Follow me on Twitter/X for more baseball content.
What Does Baseball Mean to Me?
I began my baseball career in the back field of Hamilton Elementary School in 1977. My team was the St. Bernard Saints. As a member of the Saints, I received a T-Shirt and a baseball hat. I have wonderful memories of hitting a baseball off a tee, fielding ground balls in April with my winter jacket buttoned to the top and my St. B’s hat on, and hearing my mother cheer for me sitting on a stone wall behind the field. Some 5 decades later, I still have that hat and those beautiful memories.
Baseball has followed me through high school, college, business, relationships, travel, kids, and has never once been a pest. I know more about baseball than just about anything else in life. I stink at finances, so-so on relationships, okay at business, and I am pretty good at telling stories. But baseball, I know the game. Very well. I know the good players. Jerry Remy was a good player. I know the great players. Fred Lynn was a great player. I know the icons. Yaz was an icon. I know the unwritten rules. Like when you plunk a batter after a teammate of yours gets injured or potentially injured. I know the hidden ball trick and how to execute it. Do you? I know the history. Ever hear of the Boston Beaneaters? I know the stats. Did you know Greg Maddux went 19-2 in 1995? I know what team plays in what ballpark and the ballpark before that. Have you been to Wrigley Field, it’s amazing. I know how to calculate earned run average and slugging percentage. Do you know how I know all of this stuff about baseball?
Because I love and respect the game with a passion few can understand or relate to. I played the game at a very high level from age 5 into my late 20s. I played 4 years of high school baseball. I played 2 years of college baseball. I played 3 years of amateur baseball. I played with and against former Major League players who had taken a sip or two of coffee in the show. I pitched, I hit, I played the field as if it were my last game, every game I played. Until it was. And then I had kids, who played Little League, and I coached them and pitched to them and caught them in the bullpen. And I loved every game they played, no matter the score, no matter the box score. I earned an entirely new appreciation for the game of baseball as a fan, like my mother sitting on those cold stones behind Hamilton Elementary way, way back when. And so, I began to write about what baseball meant to me and the experience of meeting other baseball people and visiting baseball stadiums, parks, attending charity events, and everything in between.
I write baseball stories as a fan, simply put, because I am one. I write about beautiful United States Veterans memorials at stadiums. I take photos from the left field bleachers and the center field grass and behind home plate and behind a huge column in a fan’s way of viewing the plate. I walk around the fields I visit looking for baseballs. And I attempt to paint a beautiful picture of the game of baseball for the reader who is experiencing baseball for the first time or has never been to a particular baseball field. I care very little about the score of the game. I care about sharing my experience of attending a game – the sights, the sounds, the thrills, the highs and lows, the weather, the mascot, the foul ball I just missed, the home run over the scoreboard, the fireworks.
To sum up, I write as I played – with a passion for baseball like few I know. I love the game of baseball, no matter the score, no matter the box score. And if you want some tips on the hidden ball trick, I am a phone call/text/email away.