Old pastime passions need chance to be rekindled

Don’t you wish that time wasn’t so linear? That once
in a while it did a loop back to the glory days?

While the rest of campus was partying in Rosarito, Europe or
other places decidedly un-Fremont, my spring break was spent
lounging around the house and old Bay Area haunts.

A lot of time at home is a surreal clash between my old life and
my new one.

Many things about my high school life I can’t fathom
““ like waking up before 10, mandatory attendance or dressing
for gym.

College life has done well to make me forget those high school
days, with one major exception.

Baseball.

I would give anything for one more day.

Going back to watch my high school baseball team over break
aroused a mix of nostalgia and frustration. It was like witnessing
a stranger with your ex.

The pitchers might as well have been in kindergarten, and I
swear they moved the fence in 100 feet, and that kid playing my
position missed a ball I would’ve caught, and why don’t
they take outside pitches the other way?

Here is where I started daydreaming. I stopped watching the game
and tuned into my highlight reel.

And as far as baseball goes, that’s about all I’m
left with. After playing since before I can remember, the last time
I swung a bat for real was when UCLA was more a label than my
life.

Baseball is tragic in this sense. Unlike other sports, the time
and sweat devoted have no lingering utility once you’re done
playing competitively.

There is no such thing as pickup baseball or intramural
baseball. And softball simply is not baseball.

While in my head I was painting the outside corner with a 90-mph
fastball, in truth my skills have eroded down to farm level.

If my daydreaming were to come true and all nine fielders
collided, breaking their arms and illogically forcing my coach to
call me in from the stands, I might as well carry a toothpick to
the plate, because there would be no point in swinging.

Two years of inactivity have rendered 15 years of a refined,
fluid swing into spastic flailing. During the two times a year now
I do throw, it feels like twigs are breaking in my arm. Sometimes,
I’m even scared of the ball.

I’m sure most every person here at UCLA has a skill he or
she has left dormant for college.

Whether it be another sport, band or drama, college’s
preparation for the real world tragically included a
discontinuation of our favorite pastimes.

Sure, we couldn’t go on “wasting our time”
practicing and agonizing over something that would never earn us a
dime, but did it really have to just end so abruptly?
Couldn’t the calendar add a 366th day where you turn back the
clock?

At UCLA, I’ve met a former ice skater on track for the
Olympics, could-be professional musicians and ballerinas, many who
have won all sorts of crazy honors in high school athletics, and
countless others who just had a great time.

“I had the choice to stay in school or go the homeschool
route and try and go for the Olympics,” said Tracy Fuhrman,
the former ice skater. “When I go ice skating, it’s a
great feeling of nostalgia, but it’s so frustrating because I
can’t do some of my old jumps.”

I am certainly not alone in my sentiments. We’ve all moved
on with our lives, but spring break showed me that my mind still
hasn’t completely followed.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” sums up my
feelings perfectly:

Glory days, well they’ll pass you by

Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye

Glory days, glory days

Opening day. Barry Bonds. Wow. E-mail Peters at
[email protected].