Baseball... and rhubarb.

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Today is the anniversary of the first baseball game played under modern rules, in 1846. I seem to remember something about Doubleday or double-header or Abner crunches- something like that.

As long as I can remember, a brouhaha in baseball has been called a "rhubarb".

That's where The Daily Rhubarb comes from.

Sure, there is also the tenuous, unnatural extension of "The Onion", but I actually hope The Daily Rhubarb makes you cry and scream more than The Onion.

My earliest exposure to rhubarb, though, came from eating fresh seasonal rhubarb that grew wild, or at least unattended, behind the old barn on the property behind my boyhood home.

The Barn- 2 story, tons of spread hay, some spread oats, too- and an antique stagecoach, buggy, and a huge old safe. The best playhouse money didn't buy.

I always wanted to be good at baseball, as most boys do. Sadly, my athletic skills did not catch up with me until I was a sophomore- at least as far as I know.

There was that one "triple" in Royer Park in 1966. Well, I call it a triple. And it would have been- if I had stopped at third. My inertia was out of whack even back then!

99 out of 100 Little League catchers would not have made that catch. Just my luck, Jimmy, the guy playing catcher should have been the MVP in the Majors, but he joined late, and got stuck in the Farm League. Goddamn, it was a beautiful play...

Russ DeBondt, the freshman baseball coach at La Sierra High School, never gave me a chance.

Every time we needed a clutch pinch hit, he would point to the biggest guy on the team, Doug Pope, who would unceremoniously whiff. The second biggest guy on the team remained the untested number two pinch hitter on the team.

As a sophomore, soccer was a winter sport, I tried out for the JV team, and the fit was immediately clear. I was destined to roam in front of the goalkeeper as the last stand. I played in front of some good ones: Curt Siebe, Grant Nelson, Brad Baker.

So, no more baseball. I did teach myself to umpire, with much help from Jim Coyne, and did so for years.

I watched, and was at some, of the glory games of the Athletics, while always keeping an eye on the beloved Yankees of my youth.

And those baseball movies: Field of Dreams. Bang the Drum Slowly. The Natural. Major League. Bull Durham. A League of Their Own (uh, yes). The Untouchables- you remember Robert De Niro with the baseball bat, of course?

Like James Earl Jones' Terrence Mann said, "The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball."

So, Happy Birthday Baseball! We never gots to plays ya likes we wanted to, but we love ya- and we always will!

SRT