I've actively followed baseball since I was about 6 years old. Every day during the season, I'd wake up and tear open the paper (to the ire of my mom, who liked everything organized), and flip to scores. How the Braves did the night before quite literally, I kid you not, dictated how my day went. I had an attitude where they controlled my destiny. I still have a note from my mom saying that I need to be the person controlling my life, not Chiper (sic) Jones. Yeah, I was in many ways misguided, but I loved arguing about baseball. Heck, I would have done better in 1996 or 1997 in Fantasy than I would today.
Having lived in Orlando since my baseball consciousness began, the coverage has always been focused on the Rays or Marlins. For the record, Tropicana Field is an awful place to watch a game. Just sayin'. I loved the 19 games where the Braves and Marlins met every year, because it meant that I'd get to listen to the game on the radio. I once was required to go to the Orlando Ballet, because my mother listened to my heavily urbane grandparents, and insisted that I needed the culture. I went under protest, managed to sneak in a Walkman, and listened to the game while watching Spartacus.
Strangely enough, I never played baseball. My mom was afraid I'd get hurt. Yet I was allowed to play basketball. Don't ask me why.
As you (collectively) probably know, newspaper coverage of baseball is usually limited to box scores and major themes across the big leagues. There aren't blogs, fantasy, numerous stats, in-depth coverage of every player, and certainly not regularly updated reports on teams 3,000 miles away. My habit of making a beeline to the sports page gradually faded out, and by the time I was a senior, I checked after doing the crossword. Admittedly, I'm a geek. Now, as a college student, I get my news from online, and don't follow very closely. I know enough to talk about how teams are doing (with special attention to my beloved Braves), but I can't tell you how many RBI's Evan Longoria has. It's kind of strange to me that my focus has shifted toward understanding the economics of baseball, rather than simply toward results. In some ways, they're tied together, but I'm more interested in understanding the entire operation, from upper management to players, even to how the ballpark is treated by the team and host city.
I go to school in Atlanta, and I've run to Turner Field (3 miles away, 4 times) more than I've been to games since I got there ($7.25 total, once).
In less than a week, I'll be leaving for a series of mission trips, and I probably won't check a paper, ESPN, or hear from anyone about anything regarding sports. I'm kind of bummed about that, because Chipper is making a case for .400, and I'd like to see how it plays out. In some ways, it's really hard to imagine having to see the season as a whole rather than a series of individual events. I'm the kind of nerd who can watch a marathon all the way through. I hate having to look at results (from 800 and up) and base my perception of how a runner performed solely on the times. In the same way, I'm going to miss checking for updates and tracking the majors day by day.
I'm not sure how I feel about doing this, because so much can happen. I'm really happy to have this opportunity (two months out of my summer is baller, and I'd be in an office otherwise), but it's like the passing of an era. Perhaps I'm just being dramatic about the whole thing, but I associate baseball with summer. Someone's going to have to post "Spoiler Alert" across the top of the standings.
And I can't believe Randy Johnson is still rocking the mullet.
This post leads to nothing but your own memories. No deeper meaning, and certainly not an expression of the meaning of life. Carry on, as you were.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
new contributors
There are no set topics for posting. If you have something sports related that you want to post about, just go ahead and have at it. One thing that might help is if you can use the labeling feature that is at the bottom of the box when you post. That way it is easy to sort by topic and/or team.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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