The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The crack of the bat, the sound of baseballs thumping into gloves, the infield chatter are like birdsong to the baseball starved.
Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface, as they play over pools and streams.
The phrase 'off with the crack of the bat', while romantic, is really meaningless, since the outfielder should be in motion long before he hears the sound of the ball meeting the bat.
You've got a little round ball and a little round bat and anything can happen.
I noticed that when I touched the ball on the field, you could hear this shrill noise in the crowd with all the birds screaming like at a Beatles concert.
All birds are incipient or would-be songsters in the spring. I find corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing of the cock.
A bird in hand is a certainty. But a bird in the bush may sing.
One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.
Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.
The bat is gone, but the smile remains.