Let's play two!

It’s a new season. A new school year is like the beginning of baseball season. Baseball starts when winter ends and around here, the end of winter is usually celebrated.

I have been to most parts of this country and there is no finer place to be in summer than right here in Central New York. But here at SU, summer is like the winter before baseball season starts. At first you kind of look forward to the slower pace. You have some time to catch up on the things you couldn’t get to when the students were here. You take a little time off. The university’s shifts to “summer hours” which means starting and ending your day thirty minutes earlier than usual. It feels nice. For a while.

But like winter, you’re ready for it to be over. You want to get back to the excitement and energy that the new school season brings. It’s time to play ball. And speaking of baseball, today the Cubs are still on top of the National League in their division as well as having the best record in all of baseball. I mention that because the Cubs were Alex Taft’s favorite team and one of my favorite baseball players of all time is Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks. Banks loved baseball so much, any day was a good day to play baseball. So good in fact that he was often fond of saying, “It’s a great day to play ball, let’s play two!”

So as we begin the new semester and remember Alex and the Cubs, let’s play two!