You gotta love spring time.

On Sunday or Monday, you looked out your window and saw people playing catch and throwing bags, and the hickory-sauce smell of a spring barbecue found its way into your nose.

DeKalb is finally alive again, and the appearance of tiny buds on trees reassures you that the windows-down summer song you’ve been dying to hear is creeping ever closer.

For me, the best sign that warm weather has finally arrived is the sweet smell of a baseball game.

Yes, baseball has a smell. The glove, ball, bases, bat, dirt, grass, fans, seats, hot dogs, beer, pop, pretzels, sweat – it all mixes together to give you a smell unlike any other.

Any die-hard baseball fan loves the game, but also loves the smell, even if they don’t know it. It may seem really disgusting to picture all the various substances mixed together, but that’s what makes a baseball game a baseball game.

For instance: You’re at Wrigley Field. You walk into the stadium, walk by the gift shops and smell the plastic-wrapped souvenirs and, in the same step, the smell of a juicy hot dog immediately hits your senses.

As you walk up the steps, the smell of the people-packed walkway leaves your nose and the brand new aroma of grass, dirt, broken peanuts and spilled beer from the half-in-the-bag die-hards who arrived two hours early gives you an entirely new smell.

The salty, broken peanuts, coupled with the salt-infested sweat from the bald guy in front of you, are so ingrained into the stadium that it just wouldn’t be the same without it.

As the game rolls on, the weather greatly affects the smell. On a hot day at the ballpark, the sun beats down on the crowd and the smell of warm beer mixed with the swirling scent of kicked-up dirt up on the field gives you a smell undeniably that of a baseball game and nothing else. But in the very same game, a torrential downpour can give you that refreshing smell that seemingly purifies the air.

Don’t forget the various desirable smells that add up. The vendor walking by with the frozen Lemon Chill and chocolate ice cream, along with the sugary smell of an up-close encounter with a two-foot high cotton candy stick, lets you know exactly where you are.

Last, but not least, the smell of the freshly cut, checkered-looking, carefully nurtured, green grass puts all other smells in their place, as every other smell feeds off the grass.

But not to worry, you don’t need to go to Wrigley to get this experience. Other than smelling a decaying building, you can get that indistinguishable smell by going to an NIU baseball game. So, back up the truck, fill up the cooler, turn over the hot dogs and enjoy mixture of the many unassuming smells that only baseball can offer.