I miss baseball

If you are looking for in-depth analysis, move on ..... there is nothing for you in this post.

That said.....

Baseball is the best thing ever. Baseball means warm weather. Baseball means long, hot days. Baseball means having to mow the lawn, water the plants, and bugs. It's not like winter, where you go to work before the sun rises, and come home after it has set. Winter has no personality, but summer has chicks in scant clothing. In the summer, you shovel mulch and get green skies when it rains. In the winter you shovel snow and the sky is usually a dull, ugly gray. In the summer, you watch baseball. In the winter, you dream about baseball.

By now, you are wondering if I have finally gone over the edge. Well.....maybe.....you see, I found myself watching the end of "Major League" on TV, and I started to equate the characters in the movie with Mets players. So, Willie Mays Hayes was Jose Reyes, Wild Thing was Bobby Parnell, Jake Taylor was .... well.....a catcher, etc. During that last scene where Hayes steals 2nd, and then Taylor bunts to win the game, I found myself thinking "that could have been us"....but.....NOOOOOOOOOO.....we have to suck, don't we ?. We had to let Reyes walk, and Bobby Parnell will never strike out that guy on 3 pitches. I mean, there is no way any Mets team wins like that. Not while I am still alive. The only Mets team that comes close to what the Indians do in this movie is the 69 Mets, but I wasn't around for that one.....well, I was alive, but still playing stickball behind my school in Cuba.

So yes, I miss baseball. A lot. Baseball has this healing quality that is hard to describe, but when there is baseball, there is reason to live. Football is nice, but it's a once a week thing. Baseball takes you in, and holds you in its grip for 6 - 7 glorious months (4 in our case - 7 for teh Yankees), but even if it is another team......its baseball !. Bart Giamatti said it best:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

....and so, the chill rains came, the Cardinals beat the Rangers, and we have been sucking wind ever since waiting for something good to happen. The off-season has been a bust (unless you're an accountant), but spring training is only a month away now, and soon, all will be forgotten and it will be time to play baseball. I only pray to Dickey that the Wilpons don't give any interviews that we are forced to listen to. I cannot wait for the first telecast, or the first game on the radio. There is nothing on this earth I want more right now than to listen to a baseball game on a little transistor radio while working on my car. Unfortunately, those days are gone. These days, I can't find the engine when I open the hood of my car, and any transistor radio would be unable to join the game thread, so that would be a complete bust for me, but some of you know what I'm talking about (I hope).

I have a DVD with my son's LL champtionshit game on it (wife taped it). This game death match went on for 11 innings, with each team scoring in every inning after regulation. We were the visiting team. 3 out of 5 innings, the other guys had the winning run on base and we stopped them. We finally won the game when the other team's best hitter struck out. It was chaos and mayhem. The audio track on this DVD is hysterical with people screaming (cheering) in spanish all the way thru. Back then, the team was called (sponsored by) IHOP. Of course, today it would have to be iHOP because anything else, people would not understand, but either way...it was baseball !. Sadly, those days are gone, and so are the days when you could go to a game for cheap. Now, between tolls, parking, food, and the actual ticket you need to really pick your spot. Besides, who wants to watch the Mets help the Wilpons anyway ?.

So yes, I am counting the hours until pitchers and catchers report. It will be interesting to see how/if Johan takes the mound. It will be good to see Wright put up great numbers in his last season as a Met (it is in the rules - this is how it always happens). It will be interesting to see if Ike can come back and be as good as he was before. Outside of those few players, I have some interest in the new CF from a human perspective, but the others are just noise to me. Don't get me wrong, I will watch every single game but sometime around June when it hits the fan, I will watch for the LuLz on the threads, and to see what the other team has (not that we can have any of it, but it is good to fantasize).

33 days and counting.