History Of Baseball Essay

I learned about baseball as I sat between my great-grandfather and grandfather during holidays and summer picnics. If we were in the park, my uncles and cousins picked an area for the ball field. If we were at the farm, an empty pasture would suffice.

As I grew, I became the runner for the older uncles, who weren’t fast anymore. Thus, I learned to play baseball under the guidance of my uncles and cousins. As for my great grandfather, Dzeidek, he learned baseball as he came across the ocean in the late 1890’s.

Nothing on the ship reminded him of the farm except for the sun, which burned over water as merciless as it burned over land. His village miller said the ocean sparkled like a jewel, but to Dzeidek the ocean was an ugly green. He didn’t know anything about Wee Willie Keeler or ‘Tinker to Evers to Chance.’ One sailor, a Lithuanian, spoke Polish. Dzeidek

Slowly, they sailed past the tip of Denmark. Time dragged during their stop in Amsterdam. After their passage through the English Channel, the continent faded beneath the horizon.

He liked the nights. The cool air soothed his sun blistered lips, and the stars seemed bigger and brighter than the ones over the barnyard fence. As he listened to baseball stories, he helped his friend sew patches on the canvas bags and learned to stitch a baseball.

Because the Lithuanian told him that the knowledge of baseball would allow him to gain entrance into America, he learned its jargon. By the time the ship docked at Ellis Island, he could say in English that a baseball was made from cowhide and that catch was as easy as catching a can of corn.

I remember sitting beside my Great grandfather in the tack room. “I saw Cobb play,” he said, “Before a game he sat in front of the dugout and sharpened his spikes. Cobb was like me. When I sharpened my tools in Poland, I imagined how I would run until I reached my new home. You could learn from Cobb. Be strong. Be