"I don't believe what I just saw!"

Hall of Fame baseball announcer Jack Buck summed up the magic of baseball with those immortal seven words. At the time, he was describing Kirk Gibson's game-ending (see also:"walk-off") home run that sent the Dodgers to a Game 1 victory over the Oakland Athletics in the 1988 World Series. It is now the height of baseball season: the game's best players and/or fan favorites will all meet each other in St. Louis for the All Star Game next week, and I am actually headed to my first game of the season this weekend (up in Milwaukee!). In my humble opinion there is no better fit for a long summer than the crack of the bat, the thump of catcher's mitt, the search for the next euphoric moment.

My heartstrings have always been tightly wrapped around a rubber ball, covered with a two pieces of leather that have been rubbed with a special mud taken from a secret spot along the Delaware River and hand-stitched 216 times to form a sphere. From the days of being a kid when I would open pack after pack of Topps baseball cards and get a jaw-ache from chewing the accumulation of gum that was included in those packs to the current day where I'm able to watch any ballgame in the country via the internet, baseball has always been my thing.

A major mile marker in my love for baseball occurred when I was 7 years old: the second time I went to see the Natural. My parents, brother, and I attempted to see the Natural one time before, but ended up walking into the wrong theater, where we were treated to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (another moment that altered the course of history for me, but that's a story for another day). The second time around to see the Natural, we managed to find the correct screen and my life was changed (again). For those of you not familiar with the movie, you probably would still know the ending, as it has become deeply interwoven into pop culture. Suffice to say, Roy Hobbs (played by Robert Redford) sends a fly ball into a bank of lights for a home run that wins his team the pennant (I still recommend watching the movie). This piece of cinema is really nothing without Randy Newman's masterfully composed score for that scene: it is the combination of these two that causes my scalp to tingle even 25 years after I first saw it.

What I enjoy about that clip is watching everyone's eyes as they see the one thing they wished for most at that moment come true (well, except maybe the catcher). It is a beautiful thing, a special moment, when someone hits a home run to end the game. I have seen one walk-off home run in my life: it was a minor league game about 15 years ago. Dan Held, the star of the Reading Phillies, cracked a three run homer over the left field fence to end the game in the bottom of the ninth and I was hugging perfect strangers in my excitement. It is a special memory of mine - a Roy Hobbs moment in real life - and its just one in a huge treasure chest of fantastic memories that baseball has already given to me. Every game I watch, every inning, every pitch, I am prepared for the next big play - the passion-filled moment where I put my hands to my head and exclaim, "I don't believe what I just saw!"

If you could travel in time. . .

I am normally not a fan of time-travel fiction, so when I do read a time-travel book and like it, I am surprised. It must be a really good book to get me over my peeve. As a plot device, time travel just doesn't do it for me. Several years ago I read The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, and I enjoyed it.

Lately I have read (and recommended) The Little Book by Selden Edwards. Here the main character is transported back in time to Vienna in 1897. One reason it is so captivating is because it was such an interesting time and place. The book is populated with characters from history and the arts such as Sigmund Freud and and Gustav Klimt.

As I was laying awake the other night thinking about The Little Book, I wondered where I would want to go if I were able to visit another time. It is a tough question. Would I choose someplace interesting historically or in a literary sense, such as Hemingway's Paris or the Roman Empire? Or would I choose someplace personal, like Scotland in the early 20th century while my grandfather still lived there. Or would I try to answer some enigma like what was really behind the Kennedy assassination? Or would I try to change the history of the world by holding Bartman back from interfering with that foul ball in 2003? A good question is one that brings up more questions than answers.

Where would you go? What time? What place?

Girls Gone Wild, Literarily-Speaking

Here's the next question in the contest. Remember there are several contests on the 3rd floor and winners will be the lucky recipients of gift cards to some of our finest Des Plaines merchants like Cheeseburger in Paradise, Shop & Save, Panera, Longhorn Restaurant, Oliveti's, Starbucks and The Sugar Bowl! The question derives from the Wild Women of Literature contest.

The Wild Women of Literature are international characters. In honor of Independence Day, can you identify the only American wild woman of literature on the following list?

1. Anna Karenina

2. Cherie

3. Madame Bovary

4. Jezebel ( of the Old Testament)

5. Sister Carrie