Baseball as Religion Part II: The Home Run Book

Let's start by talking about the home run.

Chicks dig the long ball.

That's an old phrase that pretty much means "go big".

Baseball was a big part of the coping mechanism of my youth.  It distracted, it soothed, it shaved edges.  It made blood flow.

And as any good cleric in any religion, I studied.  I studied it hard.  I absorbed the biblical sports page, joined the choir in the highlight videos, watched ESPN Sportscenter (in its infancy, of course), and memorized library books and the backs of baseball cards.  I became an ardent attendee of summertime sermons on Superstation TBS and WGN, becoming an ancillary fan of the Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs in the process.

I became such a savant that for Christmas, dear old Dad had note pads printed that were emblazoned with a cartoon figure of some cat swinging a bat.  The headline of these pads?

Who will tell me about baseball?   ROB WILL.

All that being said, The Milwaukee Brewers were, and still are, the principal drivers of a baseball passion that does still exist in a much less feverish form now.

But it was different back then.  Watch The Sandlot, listen to Daniel Stern's monologue in City Slickers, and you'll get my meaning.  I was up with the sun, catching and hitting balls (with friends or without) until it went down again.  Evenings were spent with my besties, monks from the temple of the national pastime, playing Milton Bradley's Championship Baseball or watching games on the tube.  Rainouts were seldom cause for sadness as the local channels ran highlight films of World Series past until the game returned, expanding my already impressive knowledge of the game.

Rob Will, acolyte of the Diamond.  How's that for baseball religion allegory work?

Anyways, back to the long ball.  Any sports fans loves the quick score.  The 80 yard bomb in Football.  The Clutch 3 in basketball.  But neither are quite as majestic as the home run ball.  Someone, preferably from my team, tacking a hard rawhide encircled ball of twine and literally driving it further than a football field with a stick.

After the sphere has been thrown at them, often at over 90 miles per hour, no less.

The glorious home run ball is comprised of a long arcing tracer missile ascending into the night air, accompanied by the rising vocal excitement of the paid faithful, a piece of excitement only matched by its descent into the crowd, signaling the satisfying confirmation of runs scored.

It's even better when it's late in the game, more importantly in the post-season.  Bobby Thompson, Kirk Gibson, and Bucky Dent....I'm talking to you.


So, there it was one spring day.  6th grade.  Right there in the iconic publication called the Weekly Reader.  The Home Run Book.  The Topps' Home Run Book, no less.  Who better to put together an encyclopedia of the best baseball had to offer in the round-tripper department than the premier manufacturer of the rosary beads of the sport, the baseball card.  Each cardboard saint came in a wax pack accompanied by wonderful facts and stats, introduced by the whiff of the powder pink residue scent of the stick bubble gum.  A gift from the baseball deity,  this book was my catechism, a pocket prayer book for the baseball seminary.

In it's tiny form, it listed out all the vital stats on the men who hit the most home runs.  A pocket history of the dinger's legends.  Categorized by career 400, 500,  and 600 home run hitters, and of course finishing with the two who filled the 700 homer category, Ruth and Aaron. The book obviously predated Bonds by many years, but it doesn't matter.  I don't care how many that steroid-infused twatwaffle hit, Aaron is still number one.

Don't argue with me.  I'll excommunicate you from my beautiful baseball religion.

After the book's home run hall of fame, was a segment consisting of simple home-run related tidbits, that while not as informative or colorful, were still fun. Topps' The Home Run Book was a compendium of knowledge on the most exciting moments in the grand old game, and those that elicited the most of them.

Every day of the summer of 1983, this young monk, still growing in the baseball priesthood, read one chapter.  He took in the stories of the great popes of his religion.

And remembered them.