Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society

A National Pastime: Silent and Feeling Empty

Thursday, March 26, 2020, By News Staff
Share
Newhouse School of Public Communications
Brad Horn

Authored by Brad Horn, public relations professor of practice in the Newhouse School

Opening Day has long celebrated the optimism and resilience of an entire nation. For young, old and most assuredly at every age in between, the start of each baseball season brings enthusiasm, energy and a spirit of shared experience around the country, unlike any other event in its power to connect communities and people.

Through technology and myriad streaming options, today we can access historic games and relieve these memories as we think back to warm moments that have connected families, friends and our sense of civic pride. And we will connect today, in various ways around the country.

But today, we’re missing those spontaneous high-fives with random strangers, missing the ability to vocalize our boisterous support for our home team, and most of all, missing the chance to share the stories of the heroes and milestones of the game we love with the generations of those who mean the most to each of us.

We can reflect on what is really important during these challenging times, and hopefully be reminded that baseball and a national event like Opening Day IS what’s truly important in times like these: in the tradition’s ability to connect people, to build relationships and to share pride in our communities.

This feeling is unlike the 1995 season, my first year working in baseball, when labor strife postponed Opening Day by three weeks, as we bickered over what side was right and how greed could take away our game, in bemoaning the loss of our annual tradition.

Today, we are sequestered, we are concerned, we are fighting a war with an invisible and indiscriminate enemy. And yet, we are reminded today that hope springs eternal. It’s the cry of every baseball fan every March, as a new season begins with optimism raining from the rooftops, no matter our hometown team or ballpark.

Every baseball fan today should pop on a classic game, flip through photos of opening days past and cue up “Field of Dreams,” to remind us, as James Earl Jones so eloquently opines as the character Terrence Mann, that the one constant through all the years, has been baseball.

We should well up at the thought that America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers, erased and rebuilt, but that it is baseball that has marked the time, reminding us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

That same spirit should carry us today, as we navigate a shared global challenge.

Baseball will return, and Opening Day will once again allow us to come together as one, to sport our civic pride, and to connect with close loved ones and random strangers, like no other institution. And perhaps in those moments, we’ll share a bit deeper, scream a little louder and hug a little tighter those we will share with this unmovable force of American culture known as Opening Day.

Story by Brad Horn, public relations professor of practice in the Newhouse School.

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • University Musicians, West Point Band to Perform Together This Weekend As Part of Events Around Military Appreciation Day
    Friday, September 22, 2023, By Christine Weber
  • Turning Young Enthusiasts Into Scientific Researchers
    Friday, September 22, 2023, By Wendy S. Loughlin
  • Languages Unlock Opportunities for English for Lawyers Alumna
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Hope Alvarez
  • Fall 2023 Career Week: Helping Students Achieve Professional Goals
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Gabrielle Lake
  • A Commitment to Arts and Sciences Excellence
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Dan Bernardi

More In Health & Society

International Drug Policy Academy Offers a Unique Opportunity for Students Interested in Addiction Studies

Needing one more class or an independent study to complete a master’s degree in public health, Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics student Emily Graham turned to Public Health Professor Dessa Bergen-Cico for advice and Bergen-Cico offered the opportunity…

Hendricks Chapel Dean, Chaplains and Students Attend Parliament of the World’s Religions

Representatives from Hendricks Chapel recently attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions, held in August in Chicago. This year’s theme was “A Call to Conscience: Defending Freedom and Human Rights.” More than 7,000 participants from more than 95 countries, representing…

Roundtable: 3 School of Education Alumni Define ‘Human Thriving’ in the Context of Global Diversity

“Human thriving” is among the areas of distinctive excellence enumerated in the University’s 2023 Academic Strategic Plan. This concept is inspired by the words of Chancellor Erastus Haven. In 1871, he charged Syracuse students “to thrive here, to learn here,…

Lerner Center and Maxwell X Lab Join Sheriff’s Office to Reduce Illicit Drugs’ Impact

The Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health and Maxwell X Lab have partnered with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office on an initiative aimed at reducing the impact of opioids and other illicit drugs. The two centers, both…

PAIA Doctoral Student Receives Grant for SNAP Research

Clay Fannin, a doctoral student in the Maxwell School’s Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, has received a $25,000 grant from Tufts University to support his dissertation research on the impacts of COVID-era changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.