I cannot wait until baseball season starts this spring. Baseball has the honor of being the
first sport my parents let me quit, which means I hold the least amount of
resentment toward the sport. As a
result, my friends in college experienced far more success attracting me to
baseball than other professional sport.
I also lacked any nominal geographic allegiances like I hold for the
Pacers and the Colts. How about
those Pacers by the way? They are
kicking ass right now.
I created a fantasy team last season with some friends from
college, but only one friend and I actually played. The sad thing is I finished 3rd and he won the league. However, both of us had a ton of fun
doing it. We’re both joining a
more serious league this upcoming season with some fraternity brothers of ours
that are still in college. This is
the big leagues people. They don’t
allow you to auto draft here. If
you know of any underrated players that I should pick up, please let me know.
Great season last year overall, I must say. Tigers (my team of choice) finished
well, and there were some really exciting last-to-first division titles. I remember giving a friend from college
shit back when the Dodgers were in last place in April. He is originally from LA, and man was
he excited at their impressive playoff run. And how about the impressive NL central? Man those wildcard races are
exciting. I have a cousin who is a
Reds fan and I saw a Facebook post about his disappointment at their wildcard
loss to Pittsburgh. That is the
magic of the game. You win, you lose, but there is always next year (see Cubs
fans for advice on this phenomenon).
But let’s be honest the wildcard playoff is a gimmick, though one I
whole heartedly support. On any
other day, the Reds might have pulled it out, but that is part of the magic of
baseball. Can a one game playoff
tell us anything besides who is better that day? No, not really.
But the Reds played a good season, and I look for the NL Central to be
the most exciting division in baseball again this year.
The Chicago and New York baseball slump is quite funny,
though I consider the Mets my backup (or in some cases NL) team. Let’s be honest, no one wants to see
the Cubs win the World Series because the space/time continuum would
collapse. Seriously though, most
of my close friends are Cubs fans and sometimes I feel that I share their
pain. It is tough to keep
supporting something that is doomed to fail. The Cubs struggle is clearly the baseball equivalent of my
love life, and for that, I hold out hope, however small, for the team from
Chicago’s north side. I think that
the 1st and 2nd city slump is also good for smaller market teams, but that is
my pragmatic side talking.
Speaking of the Cubs though, I took my mom to see a
Reds/Cubs game last year when I went to Chicago to get my Chinese visa. She was ready to go by the 3rd inning,
and she bought merchandize for a team neither of us support, but I think she
had an okay time. I hope they
never put the three remaining classic stadiums to the bulldozer. I include Dodgers’ stadium because I
have mad respect for it. When it
was built, people shit themselves because they thought it was too modern, now
it is considered an old-school classic.
It’s pretty amazing what time can do to our perceptions, especially in a
game as timeless as baseball.
Despite my open-mindedness and progressive nature, I think
we all can agree that interleague play is an abomination unto God that should
be done away with. I like it to a
certain extent, but it is destroying some of the magic of the game. I don’t really know how to effectively
get rid of it while keeping the divisions balance though. Maybe add some expansion teams. If the Yankees and the Mets play every
year, what is really so special about a subway series?
The idea of shuffling teams around brings up another good
point. There are some teams in the
league that ought to move. Look at
the Rays for example. Their recent
success has made the community of Tampa Bay look like a pretty lethargic
bunch. For God’s sake, they play
in a dome in Florida. I’ll say
this again. They play ……in a
DOME……in Florida. Who the Hell
thought that was a good idea? And
the A’s, one of baseball’s most historic and successful franchises, are still
sharing a terrible stadium that is haunted by the ghost of Al Davis. Why not move them to better markets
that will embrace the team? Maybe
baseball ought to look at expanding the big leagues into Latin America. Again, I am pretty open-minded, but for
some reason I have a much easier time with the idea of a Latin American team
winning the World Series than one from Canada……..Don’t judge me though.
So this opening day, I’ll be in the local hutong sports bar
checking out the games on a 12-hour time difference. Just please don’t rob my apartment.
No comments:
Post a Comment