Cold spring days in the Midwest sometimes have a unique character to them which differentiates them from their winter lookalikes.
They’re just as cold, but the sun is out, or the wind is just a breeze. Or maybe you have a calm, pale-blue-sky day. You may only get a few of those.
Either way, when you’ve endured countless brutal winter days, there’s just something more tolerable about a cold spring day, frustrating though it may be when it defers to winter and sprays specks of snow into your face for 10-15 minutes at a time.
Weather experiences are built into every location’s culture and ambiance. It’s one of the first things I try to get a read on whenever I go somewhere new. (Why, you ask? Liberal arts brain, incurable).
On a brisk April afternoon in Northwest Indiana last weekend, I took in a baseball game surrounded by dozens of completely comfortable Valparaiso Beacons (16-18, 7-10 MVC) fans. It was 38 degrees out with light wind and 100% cloud cover.
With the home team down 14-0 by the 3rd inning, I expected a swift exodus from the meager reported crowd of 162 fans at Emory J. Bauer Field. I saw no such thing. Instead, more continued to trickle in to the small set of bleachers, many carrying fast-food lunches and intent to make an afternoon of it.
A Wendy’s sits within steps of the field, the fence on its property line wide open for hungry foot traffic.
Bearing in mind that Valparaiso baseball games have free admission and parking, it would have been perfectly reasonable for someone to arrive at this game late, see the scoreboard and leave, hot lunch in tow. A few did. But most arrived and stayed, saying hello to everyone by name and plopping down firmly on their cold metal seats.
A number of fans were on hand to support the visiting UIC Flames (19-19, 6-11 MVC), just an hour outside Chicago. I took note of their perseverance, but their team was winning. It was clear to me that most of them were very dedicated baseball parents, too.
It was also clear to me that the Valpo fans in the too-young-to-be-parents division had simply made up their minds that they were going to socialize outdoors today. The score and the weather were immaterial to them.
“Come on, that’s a strike!” said one Valpo fan towards the end of an 8-run top of the 3rd inning. “We’ve got a freakin’ shoe box for a zone today.”
Foul balls drifted dangerously close to parked cars in a crushed limestone lot. Moments after each one landed, everyone could hear the crunch of an unfortunate Valpo player’s cleats on the rocks as he trudged after it.
It almost felt like I was crashing a small community gathering, or a very advanced little league game. I’m sure the Chicago Dogs hat on my head gave it away.
In the bottom of the 4th, the Beacons finally got on the board with a high, arcing opposite field homer down the rightfield line that lazily carried out and made the score 16-1. Beyond the rightfield fence lies a field and beyond that, undeveloped woods.
Paul Goldberger argues in his book, Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, that a baseball field’s backdrop should create an illusion of an outfield that extends infinitely into its surroundings. This stadium design hearkens back to baseball as it was first played on expansive grassy fields, unrestricted by the modern innovation of outfield walls.
As the home run sailed out and my eyes traveled to the row of trees in the distance, I thought of the outfield backdrops I’ve seen in and around Chicago, featuring buildings, train tracks and highways. Strip away all of that and you’d have something just like this: a Great Lakes wetland covered in trees.
It almost felt like I had traveled back in time, until Bebe Rexha’s “I’m Good (Blue)” blared through a disproportionately powerful PA system.
The road that led me through downtown Valpo to campus is also one of the primary local thoroughfares in and out of town, called Lincolnway. The town center seems like a great place for college students to study scripture drink, and the surrounding area, dotted with tall trees in bloom, small farms and green pastures, is beautiful in mid-spring.
This next point is obvious, and you definitely don’t need 60% of an anthropology minor to grasp it: Chicago and Valparaiso are quite different cities despite their relative proximity.
But as I see it, we actually have a few crucial things in common. We share terrains, weather patterns and the same broken brains that lower our thresholds for spring outdoor enjoyment to “well, is it above freezing?”
16-1 through 4 innings was about all I could tolerate, though. I headed home after a pit stop at a wildflower-dense trail in nearby Michigan City.
Over the course of just 45 minutes back north towards Chicago, farms became factories, which became suburban sprawl. Then the sprawl gave way to the city, unmistakeable in its immensity, and cold as hell.
The Other Guys
Eastern Illinois Panthers (24-16, 5-9 OVC)
Next 6 conference games vs. Morehead State, Lindenwood
Illinois State Redbirds (16-23, 5-12 MVC)
Next 6 conference games vs. Evansville, UIC
Milwaukee Panthers (20-20, 9-10 Horizon)
Got run-ruled by Northwestern? Yikes…
Next 6 conference games vs. Oakland, Wright State
Northern Illinois Huskies (7-35, 4-16 MAC)
This looks painful