Stephen Krewson | Red and Blue fields of the mind

Eight days ago, on a chilly night in South Philly, Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske and the Phillies won the World Series. All but the soundest sleepers heard the city's exhalation of relief and triumph. It came in waves of lusty yells and incessant honking. Hundreds of thousands of red-clad fans marched through the streets on Friday in celebration of that scarcest of Philadelphian commodities, a championship.

Shortly after 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Barack Obama became the president-elect of these United States. On campus at least, the sheer eruption of joy quickly matched then exceeded the Phillies' celebration. 84 percent of Penn students (myself among them) voted for the senator from Illinois. Having already cast their conventional ballots, they cast another vote - with their feet. Hundreds of happy feet coalesced into an impromptu parade, skipping to the rhythmic music of praise.

Many I talked to even danced all the way to City Hall and then they danced some more.

In politics as well as baseball, celebration is all too rare. It took this city 28 hopeless years to bring home the hardware; in the same way, millions of disillusioned Americans endured eight long years of Bush, before washing the country blue.

There may never be another week like this one. We will grow older, more cautious, less likely to scream ourselves hoarse for people we have never met. As our bedtimes creep back, we will become less energetic than we once were and more experienced - perhaps wiser, perhaps Republican.

Deep down, we know that this is how things are. Embedded in the idea of victory is the idea of defeat. When the Phillies take the field against the Atlanta Braves for their home opener in April, it will be with the knowledge that they can, at best, only match the historic achievement of 2008. When Obama stands on the steps of the Capitol in January and takes that solemn oath, it will be with a somber heart. There are deep-rooted problems in this broken nation of ours. He will take his shot at them for four - maybe eight - years. Then someone else will come along and Barack can only pray that the people do not dance at his departure.

Contemplating these twin revelries, I remembered for some reason the late A. Bartlett Giamatti's essay "The Green Fields of the Mind": "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."

The former commissioner was talking about baseball, of course, but his point is a broader one. We are creatures of seasons and cycles but are seldom aware of them. The sun rises and automatically we wake. The bottom of the ninth ends and we remain standing in the on-deck circle, bat gripped tightly. A campaign starts in Springfield, Ill., 21 months ago and we hardly take notice. It ends in Chicago's Grant Park and it feels as if our entire lives have been invested in nothing else.

After any great endeavor comes the letdown. Citizens Bank Park sits deserted - there are no more games to be played this year. The political jubilation of Tuesday will certainly dissipate in the harsh gusts of an ongoing economic crisis, an intractable war and an increasingly endangered planet.

Still, there is comfort to be found in all this. You have to take the good with the bad - the clutch base hit with the blown call, the decisive electoral victory with the bitter recount and defeat. The important thing, at the risk of stretching the metaphor past its breaking point, is to never give up on the game.

Baseball is nothing like politics, and crossing home should never matter as much as casting a vote. Try to remember though what we witnessed and what we did this week. Who knows, it might help you get through those evenings when the chill rains come and the idea of spring seems impossible. It will give you - oh, what's that word? Hope.

Stephen Krewson is a College junior from Schenectady, N.Y. His e-mail is krewson@dailypennsylvanian.com. The Me Speech Zone appears alternating Thursdays.

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