April has come around once again and our world here on the top side of the lower 48 has begun its transformation from the white and gray of winter to the vast color collage of spring. The dark angular figures that have looked like cracks in the winter horizon are beginning to bud and will soon fill out and provide the shade we’ll soon be seeking. Although we optimistically look forward to spring we will continue to warily look over our shoulder for another shot of winter until sometime around Independence Day.

What we need now are some April showers to come in and clean up the remnants of winter. Gently obliterate those last few dirty piles of snow, wash the grit of the road, and perk the grass up a bit.

In the sports world it’s time to kick open the gym doors and head outside to spectate or participate in your sport or sports of choice. Baseball and track top the list for my preferred warm weather endeavors. Nothing better than a baseball game or track meet on a nice warm spring day and nothing worse on a miserably cold, windy, rainy, snowy spring day.

While high school and college teams have been playing for a few weeks now this week brings us opening day for major league baseball. I think I was 5 years old when I fell in love with the game of baseball and it has been a constant in my life ever since. I played football, ran track, and attempted basketball but baseball was the only game that I enjoyed practice as much as the games and still do. It’s just a great game and I feel fortunate to have had the privilege of playing it for so long.

It’s also a very frustrating game. A player batting over .300 is considered to be a very good hitter. A player batting .300 has managed to be successful 30% of their at bats and met with failure the other 70% of their trips to the plate. I think this demonstrates the difficulty of the game and also why optimism is a necessary trait amongst baseball players. A juvenile sense of humor is also helpful.

The founders of the game had great foresight when they settled on using dugouts for the players to hang out in when they weren’t trying to avoid failure on the baseball field. In other sports the players are in full view of the spectators and have to appear intent and interested in the game at all times whereas in baseball the dugout is a home away from home. Horsing around is expected and encouraged in the friendly confines of the dugout.

Allow me to provide an example of the intellectual goings on in a dugout. In college, before they really began enforcing the ban on chewing tobacco, it was perfectly admissible for a teammate to spit a mouthful of tobacco juice on your cleats. If they were able to do so without hitting your shoe laces you could not retaliate until a later date but if after inspection it was agreed upon by the spitee and the spitter that your laces had indeed been soiled with tobacco juice you (the spitee) were entitled to freely soil the spitters cleat with your own mouthful of tobacco juice.

In the dugout conversations of all sort are ongoing, unrecognizable chatter is occurring, some are wearing rally caps, some are sneaking off to the concessions stand for a hotdog, most are participating in some form of screwing around, spit and seeds are flowing at a constant rate, there’s no clock, and you just might stroll out of that environment up to the plate swing your bat and make solid contact and all will be right with the world for a brief moment as you circle the bases and return to where everyone has stopped all the above to congratulate you and welcome you back to the dugout.

There’s a phrase we use in baseball when someone is having a particularly good day. When they’re hitting everything the pitcher throws and fielding everything that comes their way you might hear someone yell out, “hey havin’ a day!” We all know the peaks and valleys of the game and yelling out “hey havin’ a day” to someone is just recognition of one of those peak days that are so elusive on the baseball field. You know when you’re “havin’ a day” and that’s what keeps you coming back, that’s what keeps you from dwelling on the failures that inevitably outweigh the successes in the game.

As spring tentatively settles in go on and have yourself a day.