The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.
America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.
This field, this game, it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again.
Ohhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.
— James Earl Jones (“Field of Dreams,” 1989)
Last night, my beloved Texas Rangers said "Hello, win column!" for the first time in 2015. Meanwhile, tmatt's Baltimore Orioles improved to 2-0 in the young season.
Speaking of the Orioles, slugger Chris Davis (a former Ranger) is about to return after a suspension that shocked fans, his teammates and the entire baseball world.
The Baltimore Sun opens its in-depth story on Davis' comeback this way:
The Orioles slugger had been holed up in his home for the better part of two days after news broke Sept. 12 that his season was over. Chris Davis had taken the attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder drug Adderall without a therapeutic-use exemption.
Davis' wife, Jill, needed something from Target that Saturday evening, and Davis volunteered to go, just to get out of the house. But he wasn't prepared for the drive through downtown Baltimore, where an Orioles game recently had ended. The air was cool and crisp, and as Davis looked around, he yearned for postseason baseball.
"I felt like everybody that was at the game was out walking on the streets. They were wearing all kinds of Orioles jerseys, Orioles shirts. People were flying Orioles flags out of their apartments. Dogs were wearing Orioles [gear]. You could really tell how excited the city was about us," Davis said. "That's kind of when it all hit me. I told Jill after that Saturday night, after I came back home, I thought: 'I don't know if I'm ever going to get over this.'"
Why?
In late March, Davis sat down with The Baltimore Sun for a candid, hourlong interview about his mindset and hope for redemption. There were some new revelations, or at least clarifications, regarding his 25-game suspension, which doesn't expire until he sits out one more regular-season game.