BLOOMINGTON, Ind. ⁠— The job industry is a gong-show, nuclear annihilation is back on our doorsteps, and Year 3 of the 2019 pandemic has crept in through the back door like a guilty drunk.

…So, who’d like to chat a little baseball?

I’ve never claimed to have any of the answers. And if the answers were easy, we’d probably have them by now. But I would like to announce a new writing project called “From Left Field,” where I ruminate on the social issues du-jour (in whatever hellish format they may arrive) while watching America’s pastime.

This spring, Major League Baseball seems likely to be locked out, which is its own jar of worms. But I have the privilege of living (and working) in a Big Ten town, which means I can see the Indiana Hoosiers baseball and softball teams for free when they play at home.

“The main idea is this,” as I described it to IU baseball’s communication director, “In lieu of traditional game coverage, I would like to occasionally cover the IU baseball team in search of metaphor and anecdote that illustrates much of what’s on people’s minds right now — which might be anything from a particularly poetic performance from a player who needed a big game, or say, fans embracing college baseball with the MLB facing an imminent lockout, or returning to outdoor games post-pandemic, etc.”

I do plan to check out some softball as well. As a matter of transparency, I just haven’t gotten hold of their communications director yet.

What’s most interesting about this all is that I didn’t even grow up a baseball fan. It took some convincing. I didn’t grow up in a state with an MLB team, and my father outright hated the casual, often unserious tone of the game. “They run a little and then they need a break,” he’d argue.

Alas, once I started working the sports desk for a newspaper, I learned about box scores and bullpens and bunts and balks and bloops and all sorts of seemingly made-up words. And though I won’t claim to be a cultish fanatic of either game, I do see the romanticism in baseball and softball. There’s much time to think, and with time to think comes time to feel. And that’s where the heavy lifting of this life is done: our feelings.

Oh well, I won’t keep you much longer. There’s words to be found, and today’s the first home IU baseball game of the year: a 4 p.m. tilt vs. Miami (Ohio). It’s time to stare into the great void and see what stares back.

If there are topics you’d like me to consider for the “From Left Field” series, please use the suggestion box in the top right corner.

Batter up!

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-moose