The post that never wants to be posted. I’ve written this twice and started it twice more. But, I will persist, internet be . . . darned.

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During my first – crazy – Thanksgiving in Montana, I got to know my friend Lacy’s family over the course of the weekend. While tromping through the Missouri River breaks in search of mule deer, her father started asking about me and my family. His first question, with a bit of disdain evident in his voice, was “Are you a city girl?” How relieved I was to be able to honestly answer “No”! His next question was “What does your family do together.”

My answer was immediate. “Baseball.”

When my brother and I were little, Dad built a baseball field in our yard. A homerun was anything that went into the horse pens beyond the outfield. That’s when I learned to place my hits. With Joel the only fielder, it was entertaining to make him run from one end of the yard to the other. When we got older, we played every summer on league teams. When I disliked softball after the first season, my Dad volunteered to coach. When Joel played, I kept score. When I was a senior, I finally re-learned how to play for fun.

There’s something about baseball that’s hard to explain. Why a well-turned double play gives me a rush just to see.

Why watching little boys watch a game gives me hope for the future.

Why watching the sun set over an outfield wall is one of the greatest sights I can imagine.

I could try to explain all these things, but I’m afraid of being too cliché. So, I’ll leave it to Terrence Mann at the end of Field of Dreams (if anyone’s going to be cliché, it might as well be a fictional character). “The one constant through all the years has been baseball. . .It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again.”

We went to three games on our trip to the East Coast: an 1867 rules game in Connecticut, Boston vs. Minnesota in historic Fenway, and an amateur game of the Cape Cod League. In Fenway, the fans chanted and sang and cheered like it was the World Series. In Connecticut, the players wore Dockers and the game was officiated by a mustachioed umpire in a tuxedo and tails.

In Hyannis, the crowd was made up of parents and scouts and tourists.

Now that we’re back in Michigan, we’ll be taking full advantage of my parents’ season tickets to the local professional team.

Which means that I’ll have plenty more opportunities to believe that all is right with the world.