I have tried to explain to friends and casual fans why I love, really love, baseball.

Yes, beer tastes better when it’s a warm day or pleasant evening and you’re sitting outside at Wrigley Field than when you’re gathered around a coffee table stocked with paper buckets from Wing Stop in December. But that doesn’t approach the essence of my love affair with the sport.

I have fond memories of growing up around Chicago. Cubs games, broadcast on WGN, TV and radio, constituted the soundtrack for many summers. As a kid, I learned the home run calls of many announcers. Often imitated. Never duplicated.

From “Way back. Back….Back.” to “Hey. Hey!” I’d scream these calls around my suburban split-level and yard.

I might have fallen asleep listening to night games on the radio, originating from the west coast, starting around my bed time in Chicago. I found comfort in knowing that I shared a deep pain and yearning with other fans over not having a track record of post-season victories. I took to memorizing stats and nicknames of home town heroes. (How about Twiggy or The Vulture?)

I got an incredible kick out going to my friend Laura’s house after high school to witness her father’s retirement ritual. Late afternoons, when the Cubs were in town (they didn’t play night games back then), full of disgust, he’d slam the power button off his faux walnut console, which took up half his living room.

The Cubs were on the verge of losing another game where they once enjoyed a lead.

Then, as if try to save the connection to the picture that was vanishing into a small white dot in the center of his screen, he’d pull the button out and restore power. He had to watch!

That’s why they play the games, right?  To see what happens.

Not ruled by clocks, baseball operates on a different concept of time, and I love that!

It’s not that rules are abandoned and victors can be declared by allegiance. But the most important thing hasn’t changed.

Twenty-seven outs is twenty-seven outs.

I’ve watched, live and on TV, games that barely approached two hours and games that were full of lead changes and extra innings that were over five hours. And isn’t that like life? Isn’t that a large part of why we watch?

A life is as short or long as it needs to be. Maybe we watch — we need to watch — we choose to live — just to see what happens.

I love that games are as long or short as they need to be. I’m not expecting to become a super model in my seventies, or win the lottery, but I love that second or third or fourth acts are unknown. All sorts of things can happen in my life until I don’t keep a scorecard any more.

There’s one phenomenon I especially love. Come from behind victories.

Come from behind victories in baseball feel like an omen, a sign from heaven that can change the psychology, the beliefs, of the collective, the team and their fans.

Such exuberance, such in-the-moment joy, from a come from behind win, is celebrated around home plate.

Two such incredible finishes happened this past week. I cut the cord with cable over a year ago. and have resumed listening to some games on the radio and watch game highlights online.

I might watch the last two-minutes of these highlight reels over and over again, relishing moments I never seem to tire of.

The LA Dodgers were in town for their only scheduled visit for the season. On the first night we played each other, we found ourselves ahead seven to four after five innings. The Dodgers added a run then scored five more in the top of the seventh, but we chipped away, tying the game at ten apiece with a dramatic home run in the bottom of the ninth.

In the tenth, outfielder Ian Happ hit a single, scoring the runner perched on second. The dug-out emptied and it seemed like the whole team, not just those involved in scoring the run, jumped and danced around home plate.

Not in as dramatic fashion, my Cubbies came from behind again and beat the Dodgers the following evening. The players referred to their “Not having any quit” spirit.

I’m so grateful I get to see such games and can replay such joyous celebrations.

That’s how I envision heaven. Jumping and dancing and hugging everyone with whom I’ve shared my journey around some kind of home plate.

Believing it’s not over until it’s over, completely relishing the game, is no small thing.