Slo Time/Fast Time

Watching my grandchildren play is a joy — even if it is only online — not only because they are my grandchildren, but also because they are in the slow time of youth, a time when minutes can be days and days are almost a lifetime, a time when sights and smells and tastes linger like fine wines and expensive perfumes, a time when a baseball aimed to go by at speeds well above that allowed on the interstate seems like a beach ball carried around by a wafting breeze.

You know, not slow time but Slo Time. 

It’s the time we bleacher bums try to recapture as we watch others play the game of our youth. To those who are fortunate enough to play it, it is the time of spring training, warm days when a slow game is slowed down even more, a time of youth, remembrance and celebration.

In many ways, spring training is more important than the rest of the season. Without its Slo Time, the season might well be impossible.

When this crisis passes — and it will — the next time you are at a ball field, walk to the batter’s box and look at the mound. Feel just how close it seems. Think about someone throwing a ball anywhere from 70 to 100 mph past you and that you are supposed to put your round bat on that round ball and hit it squarely. Think about the impossibility of that task.

Unless, that is, you have entered Slo Time.

In Slo Time, you have time to watch the ball rotate, almost time to count the stitches, time to judge where the ball is going, time to decide whether to offer at it or not. Time is your ally. You control it. You are one with it. It is an amazing feeling that only the young can have.

That’s why many ballplayers are finished before they physically are unable to play the game. Time has sped up for them and will only continue to speed up as they age. The ball now whizzes by at dizzying speeds, and they simply cannot catch up with it.

The baseball powers that be want to speed up the game. All of them are well past playing age, as are the people who watch it. Time has become the enemy. There aren’t enough hours or minutes in the day to do all that needs doing. Slo Time is only a distant memory. 

Baseball cannot be played in Fast Time. Spring training is not about relearning to do what a player has been doing since he could pick up a bat. Spring training is about re-entering Slo Time, a time everything about being young and potent becomes a game the rest of us are invited into so that we can relive our youth when minutes can be days and days last forever. 

Now, with baseball a distant memory and future hope, with enforced isolation and social distancing, it may be a time to re-enter Slo Time and think about what the world has to offer without even taking a seat in the bleachers.

Millerton resident Theodore Kneeland is a former teacher and coach — and athlete.

Latest News

Stanford home market sees nine sales in July and August

Built in 1820, 1168 Bangall Amenia Road sold for $875,000 on July 31 with the transfer recorded in August. It has a Millbrook post office and is located in the Webutuck school district.

Christine Bates

STANFORD — The Town of Stanford with nine transfers in two months reached a median price in August of $573,000 for single family homes, still below Stanford’s all-time median high in August 2024 of $640,000.

At the beginning of October there is a large inventory of single-family homes listed for sale with only six of the 18 homes listed for below the median price of $573,000 and seven above $1 million.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dutchess County Sheriff’s Report
Village of Millerton offices on Route 22
John Coston

Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office Harlem Valley area activity reportSept. 18 to Sept. 30.

Sept. 23 — Deputies responded to 1542 State Route 292 in the Town of Pawling for the report of a suspicious vehicle at that location. Investigation resulted in the arrest of Sebastian Quiroga, age 26, for aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in the third degree. Quiroga to appear in the Town of Pawling court at a later date.

Keep ReadingShow less
Out on the trail
Nathan Miller

Hunt club members and friends gathered near Pugsley Hill at the historic Wethersfield Estate and Gardens in Amenia for the opening meet of the 2025-2026 Millbrook Hunt Club season on Saturday, Oct. 4. Foxhunters took off from Wethersfield’s hilltop gardens just after 8 a.m. for a hunting jaunt around Amenia’s countryside.

Millbrook Library dedicates pollinator pathway garden

Joining in the fun at the dedication of the new pollinator pathway garden at The Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4, local expert gardener Maryanne Snow Pitts provides information about a planting to Lorraine Mirabella of Poughkeepsie.

Leila Hawken

MILLBROOK — Participating in a patchwork of libraries that have planted pollinator pathway gardens to attract insects and birds to their native plantings was one of the accomplishments being celebrated at the dedication of a new pollinator garden at the Millbrook Library on Saturday, Oct. 4.

“A lot of work went into it,” said Emma Sweeney, past President of the Millbrook Garden Club, who started the local library’s initiative two years ago.

Keep ReadingShow less