STEVE MARBLE -- Notebook

In the spirit of an ongoing experiment at the Daily Pilot -- writing

shorter without forsaking vital information, good detail, strong images

-- this column will be only seven inches long.

This column will be about baseball. In an effort to save words, I’ll do

away with my notion of reflecting on those long ago summer days, playing

a full nine innings in the vacant lot where the neighbor’s slumping

wooden fence was the home run marker and third base was a splintered tree

stump.

I’d thought about recounting some poignant moment from my years as a

Little League coach. There was the time I told my youthful team that when

I wanted them to steal a base, I would take off my sunglasses and then

quickly put them back on.

How stupid of me. This was already a particularly bad nervous tick I had

-- putting on and taking off my glasses. The inning ended quickly. Three

baserunners. Three outs trying to steal second. I could go on -- but

these words do add up.

And then -- just to show how deftly I could take something as innocuous

as baseball and turn it into some sort of life metaphor -- I was going to

plunge into spring training, a symbol of rebirth.

It’s here, on the lush ball fields in Florida and the tough earth of

Arizona, that young kids emerge as the hope for the future. It’s also the

place where grown men, a step slower, come for redemption. The pitcher

who has mastered a new junk pitch, the old outfielder who is now willing

to play first base. They come, looking for youth.

For a brief moment in the spring, there is reason to be hopeful. Summer

may bring a different reality, but in the spring, everything is suddenly

possible.

Oops. The old word meter is blinking. Got to bring it home now. OK then.

Baseball, you see, is perfect. It’s the one thing in life that --

* STEVE MARBLE is managing editor of Times Community News. He can be

reached at o7 steve.marble@latimes.comf7 .