Yes, there’s a blizzard outside, FLOW schools are closing early, community events being cancelled, and the dread of shoveling sidewalks and driveways looming.
While Bergen County may be blanketed with snow for days to come, down in Florida the Yankees and Mets are warming up to welcome back their players for spring training.
One of the reasons people get excited about spring training is because it has a lot to do with spring – and with spring comes summer and America’s favorite pastime.
“There’s no crying in baseball” is a famous line from the movie A League of Their Own, and that sentiment can be applied to a lot of experiences life throws us – even a blizzard. So, if the snow has you down, take your mind to a warmer climate where baseball is gearing up.
Remember the words of the great Ernie Banks, “Spring training means flowers, people coming outdoors, sunshine, optimism, and baseball. Spring training is a time to think about being young again.” Or, to paraphrase Yankee legend Yogi Berra, “A blizzard is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.”
If the blizzard has given you the winter blues, and the prospect of baseball’s spring training cannot lighten your mood, perhaps find solace in the words of the WWII resistance fighter and French philosopher Albert Camus. – “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.” Jimmy Duggan (Tom Hanks) from A League of There Own
You get out there, and the stands are full and everybody’s cheerin’. It’s like everybody in the world come to see you. And inside of that there’s the players, they’re yakkin’ it up. The pitcher throws and you look for that pill… suddenly there’s nothing else in the ballpark but you and it. Sometimes, when you feel right, there’s a groove there, and the bat just eases into it and meets that ball. When the bat meets that ball and you feel that ball just give, you know it’s going to go a long way. Damn, if you don’t feel like you’re going to live forever. Buck Weaver (John Cusack) from “Eight Men Out”.