“They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if they’d dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game — it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.“

This epic monologue from Field of Dreams rings loudly to me today.

Last night, Aaron Judge hit #62..I have watched it over and over and over, so much so that Sue asked “I know it’s a big deal, but exactly how many times can you watch the same thing?” My answer was pretty simple “never enough times”.

Baseball connects me back to afternoons and evenings with my dad (gone since 1993), to watching games during the Yankee run in the late 90’s with my kids, to spending time at the Stadium taking the D-Train for double headers and night games and day games. To pretending to be Roger in ’61 (and wearing his number [yes I’m repeating myself from the prior post]). To anxiously opening the NYDaily News to see the stats, to many nights spent with my 6 transistor radio under my pillow to listen to a game on the west coast so my parents wouldn’t know I was still awake, and then if they lost, being unable to sleep I was so sad.

When my dad took me to my first game at the stadium he allowed me one souvenir, I chose a Yogi Berra pin, I still have it over 64 years later it was and is that precious an item to me. I also have a 1960 Roger Maris MVP baseball card that I found in a shop in Huntsville, Texas back in 1991. Through the largess of a former student at GHS I was given tickets to the third row at the Stadium for opening day when Yogi returned to the Stadium for the first time since he was fired, my son and watched as Derek Jeter warmed up prior to the game and as we were leaving we were interviewed by 1010Wins radio about what the game meant (and the clip made the air!!).

The world is a mess at the moment but for a moment #62 reminded me (and seemingly from the reaction, lots of us) of “…all that once was good and could be again”