Syracuse, N.Y. —Actor Dwier Brown was scheduled to be at Syracuse’s NBT Bank Stadium on Father’s Day.
You likely know Brown best as John Kinsella, the father who has a catch with Ray Kinsella, Kevin Costner’s character, at the end of “Field of Dreams.”
It ranks as one of the top scenes in any movie guaranteed to make a man cry.
Baseball fans certainly don’t need to cue up that scene to shed tears these days as they wait for their game to awaken from its coronavirus pause.
For those that miss baseball, this is the week when it really hits home.
The kids are out of school, the nights are getting warmer and baseball was ready to take the baton and guide us through the summer.
The Mets had six home games scheduled for NBT Bank Stadium this week. 14 home games filled with peanuts, cracker jacks, ice cream in mini-helmets, keeping score, fireworks, Mangia Mondays, Taco Tuesdays, Dollar Thursdays and everything Jason Smorol’s creative staff had ready for us awaited in July.
NBT Bank Stadium is empty on what should be the Syracuse Mets opening day. The coronavirus has stopped all of Major League Baseball, Friday April 17, 2020, in Syracuse, N.Y.Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.
Leo Pickney Field at Falcon Park in Auburn would have also sprung to life this week. A fresh batch of young players with eager eyes towards the big leagues would descend upon a great minor league baseball town to pull on the uniform of the Doubledays.
Instead, the sport fights to stay relevant.
At the top, Major League Baseball and the MLBPA bicker over money and have lost the window to boast of being the first major American team sport to come out of the coronavirus pandemic and lead us back to normalcy.
“It unfortunately appears that further dialogue with the league would be futile,” union head Tony Clark said in a statement. “It’s time to get back to work. Tell us when and where.”
Tell us when and where. Wait, are you really telling owners to ORDER you to play baseball?
Can you imagine how many of those players had to be ordered OFF the diamond at some point in their lives because it was time to come home for supper or the street lights had come on.
Baseball has shown its age and threatened to fade from our sports conscience many times.
I think of what Terence Mann, played by James Earl Jones, said in Field of Dreams.
“The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”
Baseball will survive this. It always does.
The question is can baseball thrive again? Can it justify its status as America’s Pastime again?
Can baseball come out of coronavirus shutting down ballparks across the country, another eye-rolling financial feud between players and owners and the bevy of digital options that distract a younger generation as a game that commands to be part of this country’s soul?
It’s hard right now to picture baseball being able to have a moment that moves us to tears like the simple expression “wanna have a catch?” did in Field of Dreams.
Seeing Dwier Brown at NBT Bank Stadium this weekend or one of the many little moments baseball provides at the ballpark may have re-ignited that romance for the game.
Instead the ballpark sits quiet.
There’s always YouTube, I guess.
Contact Brent Axe: Email | Twitter
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