OK, I dare you to look at this picture and not smile.
Doesn't matter if you hate sports or think baseball is boring. You will smile, I know you will.
You'll particularly smile when you learn the guy on the left, the one with the Air Jordan hang time, is 41 years old and the oldest player on the team. But at the same time, you don't even have to know the team or the players to love this photo. Yes, this photo by David J. Phillip of the Associated Press is about a victory, but it is also about pure unabashed unadulterated joy.
I love sports. I make no apologies for it. And to those who are too cool for school and offer that whole "opiate for the masses" pablum, I tend to answer that sports did far more to advance racial and gender equality in this country than any institution ever could. But that's a topic for another day.
For now, the topic is joy. Today it's the Milwaukee Brewers and all those fans in the background. Tomorrow it will be somebody else and the day after it will be somebody else.
Joy is so fleeting in our lives it's a wonderful thing to celebrate it when we see it. The joy of this moment will pass as soon as tomorrow's game begins, but this photo will make me smile forever.
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