Column from Paula DiPerna

Snapshot from a
return to the Induction

I decided to go this year — it’s been so long, and it was fun, even jaunty, to fall in with the crowd, hundreds making their way to the Induction ground — loners and families, crowds and couples. Cars with plates from all the states most likely were jammed wherever they could be fit, sun shining off their baking roofs. My road led straight to the heart of things, footsteps away.

It seemed everyone from everywhere was there on the lawn, every square of grass taken, and a sea of umbrellas, tents, and caps. I lingered for a bit with a family from the Dominican Republic — looked like three generations — there like so many to roar in David Ortiz, this year’s favorite inductee by far. I said I’d been down to the DR not too long ago, to ”Punta….” “Cana!” they filled in before I could. “We’re from Samana.” I said I loved their island, which is true, and that I’d even been to San Pedro de Macoris, birthplace of many baseball players who got to turn pro. “Fantastic,” they say.