Baseball may be the national pastime in name only these days. Football and basketball surpass the grand old game in terms of viewership. Still, baseball remains a key portal to understanding our past and where we may be headed. That's what led Will Bardenwerper, SAIS '10 (MA), an Iraq War veteran, to embed himself with the Batavia (N.Y.) Muckdogs for the 2022 season.
He did so as Major League Baseball eliminated 42 minor league teams in small towns and cities across America. Bardenwerper explains that his decision, like the one to quit his job and join the Army after 9/11, "was not a rational one." But he was determined to tease out what's lost and what's found when the corporate game pulls up stakes.
"The idea of community, or the lack thereof, was at the front of my mind," he writes.
So, Bardenwerper began countless four-hour drives from his home near Pittsburgh to western New York. What he discovered was a competitive ball club but one that isn't as good as the minor league team that once played there in the New York–Penn League. To keep the game going in Batavia, about a 45-minute drive east from Buffalo, a roster of collegiate players now takes the field. Few will ever reach the majors, but that's fine with the Muckdogs' faithful who still fill the stands in this town of 26,000.
While Homestand is a book about baseball, and a season when the Muckdogs surprised many of their fans and perhaps themselves by competing for the championship, the real heroes are the fans. This dramatis personae, as Bardenwerper calls it, rolls out like a true Shakespearean cast of characters.
For Bardenwerper knows what we're in danger of losing by only focusing on the pennant races and streaming ESPN highlights. To watch a game in person is to fall into the slow moments between pitches, to have a conversation with strangers, and wait on the next pitch, which just might bring you out of your seat.
Homestand isn't exactly a page turner. But when one slows down and nestles in, it reveals itself as a heartfelt, thoughtful read.
Posted in Arts+Culture
