Baseball has the ability to transcend time. Look at that photograph. Can you hear it? Ball meeting bat. Can you feel the contact in your hands? Not the connection of springtime baseball, the shock traveling from your seemingly electrocuted hands through your arms and into your teeth, but the solid contact made only in deepest summer. What position are you playing? Are you the batter? The pitcher? Infield? Outfield? On deck? On the bench? Can you hear the people in the stands? Can you smell the grass during the warm summer months? Look up. Can you see the soft white clouds watching the action as they carelessly pass overhead. That is baseball, and this was Basin Field in Newport, RI, in 1910.

Basin Field has hosted baseball games since the railroads backfilled the area initially used as a drainage area for steam engines. It is one of the oldest baseball fields in the United States and a gem.

Bernardo (Vlardino) Cardines was born in Venafro, Italy on November 15, 1895. After his father emigrated to Providence, Rhode Island, and paid for his son’s transatlantic crossing in 1907, they worked as tailors on Thames Street, eventually living with his aunt and uncle a block from what would become his namesake ballpark. Bernardo registered for service in June 1917, was drafted in April 1918, and was killed in action in France during World War I in September of that same year. Initially buried in France, his remains were exhumed and reburied in his hometown of Venafro at his father’s request, who had returned to Italy. Basin Field was renamed Bernardo Cardines Field in 1936. He may have been watching this game in 1910.

Perhaps it’s the story of the Italian immigrant, who, it is said, played baseball at the YMCA, or maybe it’s that baseball field that lives in my soul. It might be remnants of the recently played Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa, between my beloved Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago Cubs intertwined with scenes from the movie. It might be the link I share with my late father and brother, knowing we all played at Cardines. It could be that I’m just getting older and find myself warmed by the glow of glory days past, thinking of my teammates and adversaries, games and plays, moments and memories. Maybe it’s memories of watching Sunset League games played under the lights as a kid, knowing the 9 pm horn would sound from the fire station across the street and still jumping out of my skin when it went off. Cardines was the equivalent of Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium as a kid. The dream of eventually playing there was the equivalent of playing in the major leagues.

The photograph above struck me as a handshake reaching across time. The players in that photo are long gone. And yet, we share the experience of playing baseball on the same spot of land in Newport, Rhode Island. I know nothing about them other than they enjoyed the game. And that’s enough for us to be teammates and foes, brothers and friends.