For those of you who know me well, you know that I have historically not much cared for baseball. It may be the national passtime, but only because that's all that happens in a baseball game... the passage of time. Lots and lots of time.
My poor father, who grew up loving most sports and I am sure wanted a son to share that love of sports got me instead. A baseball hating, wussy-pants nancyboy. I like most sports now, except professional basketball which is populated with degenerate idiot thugs with way too much money and not nearly enough oversight from people with decision making capabilities. But that broad and unfair statement will have to be defended in a different blentry. Today, we're talking baseball.
My pops grew up in Cleveland, OH. Among the many disadvantages that kids from Cleveland face, (namely the disadvantage of being from Cleveland in and of itself), they have to be Indians fans. Every summer we would go visit my Grandma in the home that Dad grew up in. One summer, he thought, "let's go to the ball park. Everyone loves to spend the day with family and every family loves a day at the ball park."
So we went to a double-header. Featuring the Indians. The Cleveland Indians. You know, the ones they made fun of in the classic film "Major League." A double header is to a young boy with a short attention span and an abiding ambivalence to the sport of baseball sort of like sitting in church, listening to the same prayers and sermons and singing the same hymns for a long time. Twice.
I am sure I did not make my father proud that day with my incessant whining and wondering of "can we go now?" Although my unbridled cheers of joy upon the completion the second game might have, taken out of context, been a little payback for the kindness of treating your family to a day at the park. Nah... Dad isn't stupid.
Flash forward a couple years, my grandma passed, and the last light in the city of Cleveland, OH was extinguished forever.
There was the matter of having to call my baseball coach, Mr. Marlor, (I normally wouldn't use real names, but in this case I am because I want him to find this one day and know I think he was a jerk, a bad coach, a bad father and a bad person with a bad family), and tell him my Grandma had died and I would miss the upcoming game(s). I was 10. I was not dealing well with the death of my only grandparent. It took a lot for me to call him.
"Yeah, so?" was his response. I don't recall playing baseball after that year. I think my Dad finally gave up.
And so did I. On baseball, anyway. I grew to love hockey and football. I even like soccer. I like most forms of motorsport to one extent or another. So, it isn't that I don't like sports. I don't like baseball.
Except, I actually got a little tingle of anticipation yesterday when I thought about being able to relax and watch not only the Tigers (v. Cardinals), but also the Cubs v. Sox on TV last night. I have seen all three teams play in person, (an irony not to be overlooked that as far as professional sports goes, I have been to FAR more MLB games than any other type of sport... combined), and I like them all. I still remember "Old" Comisky Park, "Old" Tigers Stadium, and thankfully still with us, Wrigley Field.
I have to admit this isn't an entirely newfound phenomenon. Instead, it is the result of years of subtle erosion perpetrated like so many other erosions of my exclusive thoughts and notions, by my wife who likes baseball. I guess if you can't beat 'em...
And I am not one to complain like a lot of guys, because Em likes to watch football and hockey and likes to go to races and sports games. I don't catch flak for whiling away the hours watching sports. She does too, right next to me. It's nice.
Since I can't talk about specifics from last night's contests without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, I will just say at one point I shouted an obscenity, (a really big, hyphenated, polysyllabic one often heard in Richard Prior routines and rap music), at the TV screen. Itself not surprising as I have been one of "those people" my whole life, (one trait I did pick up from my Dad). But for it to be in the context of being swept up by the action of a baseball game is quite something.
Emily whipped her head around with a quizzical look that was equal parts consternation and delight and just said, "really?"
And so there it is. Today was an early day and I actually stayed up past my bedtime to watch the conclusion of the baseball game.
I don't know where to go from here, but there are a couple things that I simply must come to grips with. The first is, the older you get, the more you like sports because it is a big diversion from the difficulties of adult life. A little vacation right from your Barcalounger. Second is, I am getting old. Third is, number two doesn't really bother me too much. And if it did, I could just sit down and watch a baseball game and forget about it for a few hours.
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