I have tried to explain to friends and casual fans why I love, really love, baseball.

Yes, beer tastes better when it’s a warm day or pleasant evening and you’re sitting outside than when you’re gathered around a coffee table stocked with cardboard buckets from Wing Stop in December. But that doesn’t approach the essence of my love affair with the sport.

I have fond memories of growing up around Chicago. Cubs games, broadcast on WGN, TV and radio, constituted the soundtrack for many summers. As a kid, I learned the home run calls of many announcers. Often imitated. Never duplicated.

From “Way back. Back….Back.” to “Hey. Hey!” I’d scream these calls around my suburban split-level and yard.

I might have fallen asleep listening to night games on the radio, originating from the west coast, starting around my bed time in Chicago. I found comfort in knowing that I shared a deep pain and yearning with other fans over not having a track record of post-season victories. I took to memorizing stats and nicknames of hometown heroes.

I got an incredible kick out of going to my friend Laura’s house after a day at high school to witness her father’s retirement ritual. Late afternoons, when the Cubs were in town (they didn’t play night games back then), full of disgust at having let a lead slip away, he’d slam the power button off his faux walnut console, which took up half his living room.

Then, as if try to save the connection to the picture that was vanishing into a small white dot in the center of his screen, he’d pull the button out and restore power. He had to watch!

That’s why they play the games, right?  To see what happens.

Not ruled by clocks, baseball operates on a different concept of time, and I love that!

Twenty-seven outs is twenty-seven outs.

I’ve watched games live and on TV. Sone games barely approached two hours and others were full of lead changes and extra innings and were over five hours. And isn’t that like life? Isn’t that a large part of why we watch?

A life is as short or long as it needs to be. Maybe we watch — we need to watch — we choose to live — just to see what happens.

I love that baseball games are not a fixed amount of time, that they’re as long or short as they need to be. I’m not expecting to become a super model in my seventies, or win the lottery, but I love the idea that second or third or fourth acts are unknown. All sorts of things can happen in my life until I don’t keep a scorecard any more.

There’s one phenomenon I especially love. Come from behind victories.

Come from behind victories in baseball feel like an omen, a sign from heaven that can change the psychology, the beliefs, of a team and their fans.

Extreme exuberance, such in-the-moment joy, from a come from behind win, is celebrated around home plate.

Two such incredible finishes happened this past week. I cut the cord with cable over a year ago. and have resumed listening to some games on the radio and watch game highlights online.

I might watch the last two-minutes of these highlight reels over and over again, relishing moments I never seem to tire of.

The LA Dodgers were in town for their only scheduled visit for the season. On the first night we played each other, we found ourselves ahead seven to four after five innings. The Dodgers added a run then scored five more in the top of the seventh, but we chipped away, tying the game at ten apiece with a dramatic home run in the bottom of the ninth.

In the tenth, outfielder Ian Happ hit a single, scoring the runner perched on second. The dug-out emptied and it seemed like the whole team, not just those involved in scoring the run, jumped and danced around home plate.

Not in as dramatic fashion, my Cubbies came from behind again and beat the Dodgers the following evening. The players referred to their “Not having any quit” spirit.

I’m so grateful I got to see such games and can replay such joyous celebrations.

That’s how I envision heaven. Jumping and dancing and hugging everyone with whom I’ve shared my journey around some kind of home plate.

Believing it’s not over until it’s over, completely relishing every moment of the game, is no small thing.

Re-printed with permission.

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