Just Baseball in John Day

John Day, Oregon is a small town in the river valley of the same name in the center of the state. Its economy centers around ranching and logging, and has a long history of pioneer settlers impact on the region. This night, I sat in an old west style dinner house getting ready to order when a small boy rather matter-of-factly asked what I might like to drink. I told him that I wanted a beer, and he smiled and informed me that he would have to have someone else to assist.

A few moments later he and a friend of his sat at the bar next to me, both of whom had parents working in the kitchen. They were in middle school together, and their school was very small. There were only about 10 students in each grade, so all of them were in class together. The local high school was fed by all the towns in the county, and still had only about 100 kids in it. Neither had been too far from home, one as far as Arizona, the other only to the states adjacent to Oregon.

I discovered that most of the hotels in town were sold out because of a baseball tournament being held there. The visitors seated at the table behind me whose sons were playing commented on the beauty of the fields at the ballpark. From the reaction of the staff, it was clear that these fields were a point of pride for the community. Teams had traveled from throughout Oregon had come play games here in this pretty little town below the peaks of the snow capped Strawberry Range.

The following morning I experienced the mass of players for the first time as I went to breakfast behind the various teams getting ready for the day’s games. I had planned on leaving early for the drive south to Burns, but after getting in my truck I decided that I needed to see the ballpark and experience small town baseball again, like the kind I grew up with in Ohio. I received directions at the Town Hall and made my way over to the north side, across the fast running John Day River. The streets of the town are full of small working class houses that resemble the coal mining communities of rural Appalachia. Most were well kept and landscaped, but the general economic stature of John Day could not be denied; this was not the booming blossom that Bend or Hood River were becoming.

As I drove, I listened to an interview on NPR with an Islamic Member of the British House of Lords who was discussing Western perceptions of Muslims, and Muslims view of themselves. The exchange was a fascinating one, but I couldn’t help reflect on my surroundings as the contemporary problems of the world were dissected. How many of these players were aware of the world outside of the mountains of Eastern Oregon from anything other than television? Did they understand the turmoil that covers so much of the globe? Did it matter?

Soon I stood outside my truck high on a hill above the fields, across the valley from the extinct Strawberry Volcanoes that stand as sentinels over the town. I looked down on the players warming up for their games. All was silent; only a light wind was blowing down from the peaks above. The sound of the chatter, balls hitting gloves, and the crack of the bats were dissipated by the distance. It was a stunning, simple panorama that repeated itself in many parts of the country as kids travel to play their favorite game at tournaments far from home. Somehow I wanted to take part, but I was meant to be an observer this morning.

The problems of the world continued to reach out through the airwaves, grabbing me, beckoning to set a serious tone to the scene, but they seemed a universe away. The mountains had tucked away this little community, insulating it from the complexities of the metropolitan world. Today, baseball mattered. Just pitches, hits, runs, outs, and errors. Just baseball. Lots of it. And the mountains got to watch each and every game.