FIELDS OF DREAMS

Spring Training fever hits me this time every year

Talking about loving baseball with someone who doesn’t is like telling a Victoria’s Secret model you love her — both will look at you as if you’re an idiot, and you’ll probably be slapped by at least one.

But my inability to present the idea properly doesn’t change the sentiment: There’s just something about baseball that gets to me, particularly these days when Spring Training is underway.

Maybe you know that before ballplayers start their major league season in April, they spend 45 days in Florida or Arizona working to get in shape. But if you’ve ever been to Spring Training, you know the truth: It’s a distant cousin to the “work” most of us do every day, since the real beauty of baseball is that it unfolds slowly and on no particular timetable.

If the weather cooperates, the Spring Training sun is bright and the grass is green at the multitude of ballparks dotting the metropolitan area. It’s a rare spring day you can’t catch a couple of games, and on a good day you can probably watch three, starting around lunch, winding through the afternoon and ending up after dinner.

For a business in which everyone is rich (even the least of the bunch commands about a million dollars annually, while the best earns more than $20 million a year), they’re all accessible in Spring Training — the high-dollar guys and the youngsters just starting out — an arm’s length or two away, squinting into the sun while, generally good-naturedly, signing the bats and caps and programs thrust their way.

They’re just kids, most of them, and some look downright goofy up close, with the “Dutch Oven” (aka Texas Ranger Derek Holland) leading the laugh train with his unruly hair and dopey mustache. He could be me, way back when, sans the baseball talent and bank account, of course.

In the spring, the possibilities for the upcoming season seem so bright, much as they were so many years ago for all of us. Anything can happen during a baseball season, and even though baseball mirrors life in that the thoroughbreds generally wind up crossing the finish line first, from time to time a longshot unexpectedly makes a run for it and surprises even the most seasoned observers.

As my wife is loathe to admit, I’d watch a baseball game every day if I could. To her credit, she gamely tried to catch “the fever” over the years, but it hasn’t worked out. She sees it as a kind of sickness, I think, although she doesn’t describe it as such to others; after all, she has her own image to protect, too.

Someday, maybe I’ll find a job that pays most of the bills and lets me daily sit in the stands or, in my dreams, on the field or in the dugout or in the bullpen.

Someday, maybe I’ll find a job that pays most of the bills and lets me daily sit in the stands or, in my dreams, on the field or in the dugout or in the bullpen.

I know that probably won’t happen. But I can’t help thinking about it every spring before the season starts and before the games begin and before reality regains the upper hand, pulling me back home from Spring Training and making me hope for another go-round next year.

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Q&A: James Henley & Betty Nugent

Preston hollow resident James Henley and his sister Betty Nugent, affectionately known as Bettyann and Jimbo, have been running Junkadoodle on Lovers Lane for the past 15 years, and their biannual flea market is coming up this month. The business started as henley’s ballroom dance studio and was gradually taken over by Nugent’s weird, funky finds — from vintage cameras repurposed as lamps to a crystal chandelier embellished with doll heads. But every so often after closing time, henley clears out a small corner space to teach a clueless couple how to dance.

How did you start this place?

JH: I had a dance studio called Dance Time at Lovers and the Tollway for just over 11 years. I saw this corner. A guy was selling this little house, so I bought it. I started teaching ballroom dance, and Bettyann asked if she could sell some of her stuff in the studio. Then I thought it would just be easier to turn this into a store.

BN: When we opened, we were the only place around here. Nobody ever came this far down Lovers. So, to get people down here, we started doing a flea market in the parking lot. We’ve been doing it twice a year ever since. We have all types of vendors — from antique dealers to people who just have stuff they want to get rid of and would rather come here than have a garage sale. We have kids who sell their own handmade jewelry. For entertainment one year, we had an Elvis impersonator out front. But there were too many wrecks [on Lovers]. People were rear-ending each other. We had to stop that.

You still teach dance lessons in here?

JH: Yes, mostly weddings. Brides and grooms, fathers and daughters who just want to learn one song. They usually call me up and describe their piece of music as a waltz or a foxtrot or whatever. They’re never right. It’s interesting to me. You used to have standards like the cha cha or the rumba, and now they’re being put to modern songs like on “Dancing with the Stars.” I think it’s great. That’s what I’ve always liked anyway.

How did you get into the ballroom dancing business?

JH: I was looking in the paper, and an ad said, ‘Sleep until noon, travel around the world, and make a lot of money — apply Fred Astaire Dance Studio.’ I got a lot of training really quick. I worked there for a year and then moved to Dallas to work with the big boys. When I came to Dallas, Preston Center had five dance studios in that one little square.

Bettyann, where do you find your store merchandise?

BN: Florida, Canada, Connecticut, Austin, Corpus, Port Aransas, San Antonio Wherever I’m traveling, I’m buying.

What are you looking for?

BN: Just whatever catches my eye. It’s a collection of the unusual. I like funny, funky stuff. It doesn’t matter how old it is or how much money it’s worth. I don’t care about any of that. If I like it, I buy it. I found these lamps made out of old, vintage cameras from a guy in Austin, who just happened to be passing through visiting his daughter. If people are looking for fine silver, I’ll send them down the street. I think we all [antique shops] on this strip support each other.

What inspired you to go junking?

BN: It was just something I wanted to do. I had always helped people fix up their homes. I thought it would be fun to do.

Does your house look a lot like this store?

BN: Exactly. —Emily Toman american apparel angelika film center index skateboard supply michael raymond salon movida the people’s last stand the pretty kitty rockfish starbucks sunglass hut trinity hall urban outfitters

Junkadoodle’s bi-annual flea market is 9 a.m.-6 p.m. March 31 in front of the shop, 4402 W. Lovers. For more information, call 214.350.5755 or visit junkadoodle.com.