 Old man Runyon, a Yankees fan, sat listening each April through September, to his radio - to baseball games, mostly his Yankees.
Old Man Runyon, I don't know his first name, unless it was Mister. And perhaps he was not old. His son David, a tall, lanky fellow was my good friend. We were 14 years old, and David was the older of the siblings, Etta Mae the sister being, I think, about two years younger. So maybe, the old man was 35 to 40 years old? I don't know. But he was old to me.
I never remember Mr. Runyon other than him listening to baseball on his radio. And Mrs. Runyon looking like a caricature of a 1860s pioneer women on her way out West, maybe to the Oregon Territory. You see Mrs. Runyon wore dresses that went to below her shoe tops. The Runyon's were from East Tennessee. And they talked that way. It was embarrassing for son David, I think. Not daughter Etta Mae though; she talked East Tennessee too.
David was a pretty good baseball player. He even played on our Boone High School team for a couple of years. Boone was a large school in Orlando, Florida back then, and David's accomplishment was important and significant for the old man. Actually I was a better baseball player than David, and the old man knew and appreciated, and even more, didn't mind this.
The last house on the road that was paved was the Runyon's. They were country folks from East Tennessee in a new and progressive city that was soon to have Disney, and already then had the success that was Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin). They were the Beverly Hillbillies, but in Central Florida, Orange County, Florida rather than Orange County, Hollywood, California. But, they had no wealth, from oil or otherwise. The road they lived on is now an extension of Semoran Boulevard and is four lanes. Just past where now Semoran crosses Highway 50 (East Colonial Drive), maybe 200 meters was where the paved road ended.
 Now Orlando metro area has almost a 2 million population. And the Runyon's old home is gone, and metropolia with apartments, bars, discos, shopping centers, spas, and much other such exists. The two skylights old man Runyon built in his small home, which were a wonder to me at the time, is something else of the little I remember of him, other than the baseball. I mention the skylights for the incongruity. They were so well constructed, a labor of love by the old man, truly excellent observatories, far exceeding in magnificence the humble abode in which they were employed.
The Runyon's were so country in speech that I too, like David, felt embarrassed for them. Worse, I was embarrassed and timid in my admitting associating with them. A few years later I understood my foolishness. The old man and the wife, with the funny speech, were good people. The full impact of my foolishness I recognized when I lived in East Tennessee for four years. That was a time I went to law school in Knoxville, but I managed to spend a good deal of time, both by auto and on foot, meeting the mountain people of East Tennessee. They talked just like the Runyon's, a dialect combined of English and Scot-Irish not much too messed up with the sanitized speaking of 21st century TV and radio people. And more like 200 to 300 years ago. Sounding to us as ignorance in the 20th and this 21st century. But no, it is our ignorance exposed, not theirs.
 Tim Hudson is a baseball player, a pitcher. Born, raised in Columbus, Georgia. He went to Auburn University. He is not from East Tennessee. He spent some years with the Oakland Athletics. He, as an accomplished right-hander, came to my Atlanta Braves in 2005. For two seasons he has struggled. His split-fingered fastball (a nasty pitch that, when under control, winds up low and wicked on the outside corner of the plate and when, if, hit, means at best a fieldable grounder) deserted him. He even abandoned it in the late 2006 season. Still, the somewhat "ineffective" Hudson was better than the average pitcher in years 2005 and 2006.
Hudson has been superb through the 25 games the Braves have played this year. He has pitched in, I think, six or seven games and has won three. His split finger fastball is back. The last two games he has pitched would seem frustrating to the novice baseball viewer. You see he has pitched sixteen or so innings of beautiful baseball in his last two outings. In fact he pitched better than in any of the three wins. But he has not won. In those two games the Braves lost one, won one. A baseball person says: "That's baseball."
The point: baseball is really not so frustrating as is recognizing that baseball, like life itself, continues. It is not fulfilling to be frustrated for very long. There is tomorrow, a chance not so much for redemption as for victory over time. Major league baseball is 162 games a season. If a team loses only four of every ten games, that team will likely win a division or qualify for the playoffs. And, for some reason, maybe associated with life and baseball comparisons, an individual baseball player who only fails to get a hit seven in ten times at bat (i.e., that is "loses" 7 of 10) is a .300 hitter, and if he "loses" long enough and collects a few RBI's (I hesitate to explain to the non American, Japanese, Mexican, Central American-and increasingly many others worldwide who are beginning to understand that soccer is only a sport) that baseball player is a Hall of Fame possibility.
 Baseball comforts. Maybe like a continuous opera with pathos, comedy, all of life's emotions, but without that screeching sound that comes when the fat lady sings. Maybe like a beautiful 162-day symphony, but where what's going on in the field, and the hotdog vendor and the guy selling the beer, and the not so comfortable seats keep one's attention to life.
In Ukraine, for $14.958 I buy radio baseball and my Braves over the Internet.
I could buy video. But, like old man Runyon, I grew up listening to radio baseball. The double A baseball Memphis Chicks and the major league Saint Louis Cardinals from my Memphis home, prior to Orlando. Harry Carry was the announcer I used to listen to, before he went on to more fame in Chicago for the Cubs.
The time difference is terrible. The Braves on the east coast USA means either 2:05 or 2:35 A.M., and it gets two and three hours worse as the schedule takes us west.
But this symphony of life, this opera, brings joy, pleasure, tragedy, pathos, ups, downs for about seven months of the year, plus an off season "Hot Stove League".
There's always a next day. A next season.
Baseball is life.
I listen. I gain some minor wisdom of life.
I think old man Runyon knew the pleasure of life.
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