Thoughts of a Roads Scholar: Home, wherever you may find it Ever since I attended my very first baseball game in the late 50's, I've always been a big fan of baseball. Well, I shouldn't say always. In the mid 90's, I actually boycotted the game for a while. I had no sympathy for millionaire ballplayers walking out on the game and fans that made them filthy rich to begin with. It felt like they were ungrateful babies, biting the hand that fed them, the paying public. Not only did I boycott attending the games, but I also boycotted watching them on TV.

Ironically, it was two controversial ballplayers who brought focus back to the boys of summer. It was Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire who enticed me, along with most of the rest of the sports-minded nation, back into the baseball fold with one of the most exciting displays of power and friendship ever documented in the history of sports. I say ironically, because both were most likely cheating at the time, either by using performance enhancing drugs or corked bats. In Sosa's case, maybe it was both. Although that year had fans riveted, both players will now likely be denied admittance into the Baseball Hall of Fame due to their respective character flaws. It's all very sad, because these were the two single-handedly responsible for putting baseball back on the map.

Why am I writing about baseball in a running column, anyway? Mainly it is because I've been staying in downtown Houston the past couple of weeks, rediscovering MY favorite past time, and I have been scoring runs every morning around Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros, It has sparked thoughts within me that I wanted to share. So with that in mind, batter up!

Houston has had three different homes since it's inception to the National League at the start of the 1962 season. Most people don't remember that the Houston team didn't even start out as the Astros. For the first couple of years, they played as the Houston Colt 45's, while they were building their first permanent home, The Houston Astrodome. They were introduced to the league the same year as the wildly popular NY Mets.

The Astrodome, at the time, was referred to as the 8th Wonder of the World. It was the first ever domed sports arena of this magnitude. An observation that I think is even more amazing than the Amazin' Mets is that this futuristic edifice only 40 years ago has now become known as the "Lonely Landmark, relegated to hosting only an occasional concert and high school football games. If I weren't still so young, that sobering thought might make me feel old.

Home. It can change many times over one's lifetime. But when you find it, there is no place like it, and it is a concept I have given a lot of thought to lately. As I have endlessly lamented in recent columns, home is a place I have spent very little time this year. The world of travel can have its rewards, but it can also be tiring, stressful, lonely, and a world apart from home. My wife has been extremely understanding and supportive, which has meant the world to me, and when I do go home, it is where my heart is.

I have always found that when I am not at home, it helps to find a routine that reminds me of home. Over the years, nothing has accomplished this feeling more naturally than running. It is the one part of the daily routine I can maintain no matter where I am, as long as I have the motivation and the desire. But both have been absent for longer than I'd like to admit.

Happily, however, both have recently returned with a passion I have not felt in a long time. I once again go to bed at night fully expecting to run the next morning, and I have been successful in that goal much more frequently than not lately. I am once again looking more for reasons to run than excuses not to.

Home. When I am not there, I can at least pack parts of it and take them with me. It doesn't even take up much room in a suitcase. All that is required is a pair of Sauconys, socks, shorts and a singlet, slightly more in the winter. It is my portable home away from home.

Home. Aside from family, it is also where my friends are, and my friends are something else I have neglected this past year. . This includes my friends on the Internet, which is always at my fingertips when I travel. In my tunnel vision with blinders, I have spent too much time focusing on other things, making most aspects of home seem even further away than they need to be. It is something else I see changing in the near future. It's just another element of home that I can control when I am not there.

So again, somehow baseball, running and Houston have caused me to reflect on home, and how much I have missed it. The new Minute Maid ballpark might be a beautiful place to call home, and my runs around it have reminded me to always root for the home team, no matter where I may be. As they say in baseball, being on the road could mean facing a hostile environment, but as long as you go home in your mind, it doesn't have to be a disadvantage.

Michael

Michael Selman

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