Living in Japan, Baseball and The Promise of America

Enjoy | Delight in Life

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I spent 1980-81 teaching English in Japan.  While there, I read Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again.  (Click any image to enlarge).

Take Me Out with the Crowd

His vivid descriptions of life in America glowed neon bright in my small tatami-matted room.

The packed stands of the stadium, the bleachers sweltering with their unshaded hordes, the faultless velvet of the diamond, unlike the clay-baked outfields down in Georgia.

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jack

I recently watched the Triple A Pawtucket (Rhode Island) Red Sox lose to the Durham Bulls.

I Don't Care if I Never Come Back

After the game, families lined up...

Let Me Root, Root, Root for the Home Team

...to run the bases.

The above quote from You Can't Go Home Again, published in 1934, is from the chapter The Promise of America, which ends with this sentence:

So, then, to everyman his chance - to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity - to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him - this, seeker, is the promise of America.

Jack Norworth wrote Take Me Out To The Ballgame in 1908.

Tech Tips: Ansco Pix Panorama camera, no settings to set, Kodak Gold Max 800 Speed 24 Exposure 35mm Film (4 Pack), film processed and scanned at Walgreens.

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