COMMENTARY / BASEBALL : It’s That Special Time of the Year--Time for the World Series

Little boys who would be men dream of the World Series.

The World Series is men who would be boys.

It’s hot dogs and The Star Spangled Banner. It’s the Yankees beating the Dodgers again. It’s Reggie Jackson sending baseballs into the Mr. October night and saying, “You can love me or hate me, but you can’t ignore me.”

The World Series is Bob Gibson pitching a seventh game and Kirby Puckett leaping against the center-field fence. It’s Kirk Gibson dragging his heroic bum of a body around the bases. Babe Ruth pointed to center field one World Series day and Jackie Robinson stole home and Brooks Robinson caught everything Johnny Bench hit.

It’s the Oakland A’s of Charlie Finley punching each other out, and it’s the Pittsburgh Pirates singing, “We Are Fam-a-lee.” Every October we come to another World Series, another chance to be a kid with our first baseball glove. Another baseball season older and still we remember Mel Allen on the radio and Red Smith in the papers. The World Series is both memory and anticipation, each made better by the other’s existence.

Willie Mays turned his back to home plate in the 1954 World Series, and the World Series turned its back on Ernie Banks forever.

It’s Connie Mack in his gray suit.

It’s Pepper Martin firing up the Gashouse Gang.

It’s Grover Cleveland Alexander fighting off a hangover.

Tommy Lasorda says three words, and they’re musical and almost heavenly the way he says them, certainly said with such devotion they should be printed by in capital letters: “THE FALL CLASSIC.”

The Fall Classic is grainy black-and-white film on which we see, thousands of times, Don Larsen getting Dale Mitchell on a called third strike for a perfect game in 1956. Al Gionfriddo goes to the wall in left-center, Sandy Amoros goes to the line in the left, Ron Swoboda lands on his belly in right with the ball somehow in his glove.

There’s always a World Series. An earthquake and its fires didn’t stop the games. Neither did gamblers in 1919. Baseball played through both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. Woodrow Wilson left the White House to throw out the first ball of a World Series. Franklin D. Roosevelt said to keep playing because we need dreams as well as guns. The Cubs haven’t been in the World Series since the season we dropped the atomic bomb.

Open “The Baseball Encyclopedia” to any page. Turn to the E’s. It’s George L. Earnshaw, Michael A. Easler, Rawlins J. Eastwick, Zebulon V. Eaton, C. Bruce Edwards, Howard Ehmke, Horace O. Eller. They all played in the Fall Classic and they would talk about it forever and their names would go in the record book, men who made real the dreams of boys.

Almost nobodies Mark Lemke and Brian Doyle, Al Weis and Billy Martin became somebodies in the World Series.

The World Series is shoe polish off Nippy Jones’ spikes and Bill Lee saying he received pitching instructions from another planet. It’s Bill Buckner befuddled by a ground ball and Mickey Owen chasing a third strike and Lonnie Smith forgetting how to run.

The World Series is fun. The pressure is off. It’s Sparky Anderson hugging everyone he sees. It’s an old ballplayers reunion. We hear war stories, lies and other truths as they should have been. We heard Casey Stengel say, “That guy we got in right field that’s got the crooked arm that hits left-handers good, he’s going to be OK if he finds his way to the park enough.” And everyone knew what Casey meant.

It’s Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez demanding greatness and getting it.

It’s Carlton Fisk dancing down the first-base line, leaning, shoving the air, hoping.

It’s Minnesota-Atlanta 1991, the best ever.

The World Series is the chill of the year, October nights after summer days, the resolution of a contest that began in the spring, a contest that ties generations together, as Steve Garvey said in 1984 after his playoff home run put San Diego into The Fall Classic: “It is rare enough to be part of history, but it is rarer and even more special to know it as it is happening--to consciously revel in the tradition and love the moment for what it is.”

The World Series tells us the world is in fine working order, and we should put aside our troubles for a minute to love again the best game there is. It’s the best game because it speaks to our hearts. We grow up knowing what it feels like to play this game. We know it so well we don’t so much know it as we are, in some wonderful way, made to understand that the game is part of our being. We don’t have to explain it to each other; we all feel it the same way. And we share it without being asked to share it. This is love.

Bill Millsaps, a wonderful Virginia sportswriter, knows how this love touches sons and fathers, and he’ll tell you about the events of October 8, 1956.

That day the stern Tennessee school principal William Millsaps rapped on a classroom door to interrupt a class. He demanded that young William Millsaps Jr. leave the class. When the boy, frightened by the circumstances so brusque, asked his father what was wrong--is Mother all right?--the principal Mr. Millsaps said to be quiet and just come along.

Millsaps the elder and junior went to the principal’s office. They marched through the secretary’s anteroom, the father stonefaced silent. They were in the principal’s private office when Mr. Millsaps said, “Billy, shut that door behind you.” Then he said, “Sit down, son, and watch the television. You won’t believe what Don Larsen is doing to the Dodgers.”