The Orange Spotlight

Cleveland Scores Early by Michael Ceraolo (Kendra Steiner Editions #162)

It's that time of year again, baseball season. This year, in January, I swore off sports promising to ignore everything from reality to fantasy. I was able to elude that vaunted phrase, "pitchers and catchers report", but the of pull of April 1st was just too much to resist. You see, I was born the grandson of a die-hard Cubs fan. My Grandmother had even made dinner for Gabby Hartnett on several occasions. It was inevitable that I would come to love all of Cub-dom. So why I did I give it up? Well, it was a fragile mixture of lack of time and 30 years of continual let downs.

All of these memories and realities came to a head when I picked up a micro-chap called Cleveland Scores Again by Michael Ceraolo. In it Michael captures that sense of eternal optimism of a child that baseball propels long through adulthood. Highlighting just four days, just four games in 1974, universal truths about baseball are revealed and cherished. It makes me feel like much less of a fool as I return to root-root-rooting of Cubbies.

If you've become disillusioned with your team pick up Cleveland Scores First and try to remember why you fell in love in the first place.

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