There is Hope in The World

On June 8, 2010, hope burst on the scene, and it couldn’t have come at a better time as the country continues to grapple with oil gushing into the Gulf, an economy continuing to teeter on the edge of recovery, uncertainly over the new health-care law and rising tensions in the Middle East.

For the 40,000 who were there and millions more around the country, hope came in the form of 21-year-old Stephen Strasburg, the rookie pitching phenom for the Washington Nationals. He not only met the hype, he may have exceeded it. The details have been covered widely, but he put on a pitching performance not seen in decades, if ever. His performance was compared to the greats of the past – Johnson, Feller, Gibson and Koufax. Not only did he strike out 14 Pittsburgh Pirates, he did it with a control over a variety of pitches that bordered on the unbelievable – a 100-mph fastball, a 91-mph sinking fastball and a curveball that made several Pirates look silly. For most of the Pirates, it was as if they had never picked up a bat. And somehow he got better over the course of the game.

What this means is that despite all the challenges facing this country, every five days for the next four months Stephen Strasburg, the Washington Nationals and the game of baseball will provide us with the opportunity to focus on something other than our problems.

In the film Field of Dreams, the Terrance Mann character said it best: “The one constant through all the years, Ray, 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. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

We could use a little of that feeling today.