September 27, 2023

By Melissa Verge

Canadian Baseball Network

It smells like coconut sunscreen and the egg salad sandwiches we just ate for dinner. Not exactly a delicious combination.

The heat of summer is unforgiving, and our family of five is piled into my Dad’s Impala. I’m stuck in the middle seat, as usual. It’s a squishy, sticky situation. I have to pull my arms in as close as possible to avoid touching my brother and sisters sweaty arms a few inches away.

Occasionally the wind blows through the open car windows, pushing my hair into my face, even with a ball cap on and a ponytail.

It’s so annoying. But I’m 15, everything annoys me, from the close proximity of my brother and sisters arms, to the zit I just got on my forehead. Thankfully, my hat covers it.

The destination makes the close quarters worth it. We’re heading to the best place on earth. No, not Disneyland. My dad is zipping along the curves of the N.B. road to the Hampton ball field, so we can make it in time to warm up before the game.

In the halls of our high school I never feel like I fit in, but when my cleats dig into the dirt, walking across the white foul line to our dugout, I feel like a different person. This is home. Who cares that I don’t know who I’ll eat lunch with at school tomorrow. Or that I’m breaking out, or that my boyfriend just dumped me over a note I was passed in class.

When I’m on the mound all that matters is hitting that glove. And if my teammates on the bench will eat through all the sunflower seeds and double bubble before I make it back to the dugout.

Thankfully, there’s still some left when the inning is done. I’m last in the batting order as usual, and my coach has spelled my name with two l’s for years, but you can’t win them all. I’m just hoping we win the game. I shove the sunflower seeds in whole, sucking off the salt before chewing them down into sharp and spikey bits. I’m not sure how to de-shell them, so I swallow them whole, hoping they’re extra protein and that they somehow get digested in there. Nutritious? Not sure. But certainly delicious.

That’s how I spent many summers. Throwing baseballs around that small Hampton ball field, even driving in the backseat of my dad’s Impala squished next to my siblings, was what I looked forward to every year when the weather turned cold. And when it did turn cold, I’d plow through the snow in our backyard to a waiting hockey net to practice throwing baseballs. It was a deep love that even the cold of the winter couldn’t deter. That even years of not playing the sport couldn’t change.

It’s been about 10 years since I’ve played in a baseball game, and that love still hasn’t gone away, and I know it never will. Baseball is where I’m meant to be. Whether I’m on the field or in the stands, the diamond is like home.

It’s more than the memories, it’s the beauty of watching people every year from all over Toronto, all over the country, come together at Rogers Centre to take in a ball game. You may have spent the day all alone. You may be watching at home on TV and feel alone. But you’re a part of a community, who are all bonded together by a love for the sport. Anyone that loves baseball, I feel an automatic kinship with. We’re brought together by that passion, and that hope that this is the year Canada’s team will make it all the way.

With October baseball almost here, and the Blue Jays three wins away from securing their spot in the postseason, hope is at an all-time high. Anything can happen. They could win the World Series and carry the trophy through the streets of Toronto for the first time since 1993.Or they may break your heart, making you long for meaningful baseball on a crisp fall day, curled into a blue stadium seat with a hotdog and a cold beer even more.

There’s some beauty and excitement in unpredictability and the unknown. With a loss, the winter is long and it is cold. But every spring, when the snow melts, giving way to the grass and the diamond dirt, there’s hope. Anyone who loves this game understands. Anything can happen, it’s baseball. And it’s time to do it all over again.