Baseball to restart season
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Associated Press
Less than a week after the events that changed America and the world, baseball told teams they've got a job to do: Play, and make the games seem as if they matter again.
When major league ball returns today, the standings and statistics will be exactly as they were. Barry Bonds is still chasing Mark McGwire's home-run record and more than a dozen teams are still in pennant chases.
But will anyone watch, will anyone care?
"They asked me a few days ago when I thought we should play again," Minnesota first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz said. "I said spring training."
Instead, with U.S. flags on players' caps and uniforms, fans wearing stars and stripes, and "God Bless America" set to replace "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch, the games will go on.
As they should.
"It is important for America to get on about its life," said President Bush, the former co-owner of the Texas Rangers.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will keep performing. The New York City Opera will continue singing. Hollywood actors will go on making movies.
So the ballplayers will return, too, as will athletes in all pro and college sports in the coming days.
And the crowds at Dodger Stadium, Veterans Stadium and Coors Field will cheer, although maybe not as loudly as before.
No lack of respect there. Ballgames won't mean any less, only now other things mean a whole lot more.
The national pastime has tried to help heal the nation in the past. During World War II, President Roosevelt urged the sport to keep going, saying it would boost the country's morale and mend part of its torn fabric.
In 1989, an earthquake interrupted the World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants. Arizona third baseman Matt Williams was playing for the Giants during that crisis.
"The initial concern for everybody was first of all trying to find people alive on the highway, fires downtown and stuff like that, making sure everybody was safe. That was priority No. 1, and it has to be," he said.
At Veterans Stadium, Atlanta will play Philadelphia in a key NL East series. Braves pitcher Greg Maddux expects he'll be ready tonight.
"It's weird. I can't really explain it. You go out there, they hand you a brand new ball and everything changes," he said. "That's one of the beauties of the game."
Randy Johnson, baseball's most intimidating pitcher, admitted he might have trouble tonight when he starts for Arizona at Coors Field in Denver.
"We might physically be there, but mentally our minds might possibly be elsewhere, and that's understandable," he said.
