When The Daily Post asked bloggers to show their “Happy Place” on their blogs this week I wasn’t going to play along. After all, what do you expect me to say?
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which seek thro’ the world, is ne’er met elsewhere.
Home! Home! Sweet, sweet home!
There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!
~ From the 1823 opera “Clari, or the Maid of Milan.”
© The Baseball Bloggess
Funny thing. 1823 is also the year that we can find the first known references to the game of “base ball”:
“I was last Saturday much pleased in witnessing a company of active young men playing the manly and athletic game of ‘base ball’ at the Retreat in Broadway.” ~ The National Advocate, April 23, 1823.
Coincidence? Of course not.
There’s no place like home.
Photo: The University of Virginia vs. the Ontario Blue Jays. Davenport Field, Charlottesville, Virginia. October 13, 2015. (Taken behind the netting. Sorry about that.) © The Baseball Bloggess
UVa defeated the Canadian squad (an 18-and-under team featuring some of the best young players in the country) 12-5 last night in a strange 14-inning “exhibition” game that was a more a showcase for scouts, I think, than an actual game. Players batting out of order. Pinch runners pinch running and then disappearing. Really odd.
But, still … even really odd baseball is Happy Place worthy.
In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Happy Place.”
The Baseball Bloggess 
Great Post
Right on!
Thanks, Gloria! Your Cubs are still in it!
Geat shot of the UVa Stadium, BB. Yes, baseball of any form makes me happy, too. :-) Let’s Go Mets. (Had to slip that in before Game Five in LA tomorrow night.)
Thanks, MB. I have loved watching your Mets this season. You can’t go wrong with spunk and sputter! And, I mean that in the best way possible! Plus, my beloved Metropolitan Dumpling — Bartolo Colon. Good luck to your Mets. (Now that the AL will be either Blue Jays or Royals … I’m rooting NL all the way.)
Yes, the Round on the Mound, the Mets’ Rotunda, Big Bartolo, has been fun to watch in his relief role this series. Thanks for your great Mets’ wishes, my friend.
Even though our O’s are nowhere to be found, I am finding enjoyment in baseball’s postseason. If I was a grudge holder, I should be rooting against the Royals with every fiber of my being tonight. Heck, I may be anyway.
I think the Blue Jays’ win wounded my Orioles heart a little more last night than the Royals’. Because I still can’t forgive Cito Gaston … and that was 20-odd years ago. In any event, I think the Cubs, with all their Orioles pitchers, feel a bit like Baltimore West this season. :)
That is world class, epic grudge holding. Kudos to you. ☺
I know. I feel kind of bad about that grudge thing. But, Cito messed with Mike Mussina. And, so the Blue Jays are forever dead to me.
Yes he did. And then Moose left for the filthy lucre of the New York Yankees. Blech
Hooray!!!
And great shot.
v
Thanks, V. Good luck to your Dodgers. Now that the AL is Royals or Blue Jays, I”m jumping aboard the National train … all the way. :)
I love that photo. I honestly didn’t even notice the netting until you mentioned it.
Thanks! I have a love/hate relationship with that netting … hate it when I’m trying to get my lens to focus through/around it, love it when it prevents a foul ball from killing me. You’d think they’d have come up with a clear filament netting by now, wouldn’t you?