My Love Affair With Baseball

Baseball is my addiction. I can't get enough. I'm a Detroit Tigers fan by birth, and a New York Yankees hater by good common sense. As such, I tend to root for the Red Sox as well when they aren't playing the Tigers, just because I know it pisses off Yankees fans. With baseball, I love the sport more than I love any particular team. I just love watching the game. I love that there isn't a clock, that a pitcher can't just slow down the game and wait things out for a win. He has to pitch strikes and he has to get outs. I love the thought of one batter against nine fielders, and the fact that the batter wins around 30% of the time (if he's good) despite those odds. I love going to a game in the summer, eating a hot dog and drinking a beer, all those cheesy cliches. I love Buck O'Neill, Peter Gammons, Ken Burns, and anyone else whose passion for the game is indefatigable. I love that my son is so passionate about little league, and every once in awhile tells me he wants to play baseball in the majors when he gets older (and even if he changes his mind, at least I'll have someone to watch the games with me when I get older). I love baseball.

My grandfather took me to my first Tigers game at old Tiger Stadium. They played the California Angels. This was in 1988. My favorite player at the time was Matt Nokes. He was coming off an All Star season in '87, in which batted close to .300 and had 32 home runs. I still remember this. I latched on to him like all kids do who love sports. You find that one athlete and he becomes your hero for a year, two years, however long you need as a burgeoning fan of the game. I watched Nokes go 0-4 that day, flying out to center three times. None were close to going yard, but every time the ball came off his bat I jumped out of my seat. My disappointment that day was equal to his disappointing career post-1987. When we traded him to the Yankees in 1990 I was crushed. I hated the Yankees even then, and here was my favorite player wearing pinstripes. I was well aware that he wasn't very good anymore, that he wasn't really performing anymore, but it still hurt. My pain was eased by Cecil Fielder. 51 home runs will do that for you. Still, I was taught a tough lesson about favorite athletes.

Problem was that lesson didn't stick. Right now I have an unhealthy obsession with Curtis Granderson and Henrik Zetterburg. Both play their respective games the way I love to watch and athlete play. They play their hearts out on both ends, and they conduct themselves with class and respect. Both are young, both are extremely talented, and both would rip my heart out if they left to play for another team. I worry more about Zetterburg than Granderson, because of the salary cap in hockey and the amount of talent on the Red Wings. Either way, I'm setting myself up for heartbreak again. But I digress.

Some complain that baseball is headed in a bad direction, with rising salaries and dominant large-market teams. I think there's something to that, and at times it bothers me too. Some complain that the game is too slow. I can't get behind that at all. Putting time limits on pitchers at the mound is absurd. Watching a pitcher go through his routine, watching him hit his spots, dancing around the strike zone, trying not to make a mistake, is too beautiful a thing to tamper with. There's nothing quite like watching a pitcher smoke his fastball on the outside corner and just freeze the batter, or drop a breaking ball right over the plate, buckling the knees of his opposition. Some say it's become to reliant on the home run, and while a part of me wants to agree, there's no feeling quite like watching the ball connect with the bat and knowing, even at home watching on my TV, before the camera ever tracks the outfielders, that it's going over the fence.

Baseball, despite its flaws, will always be the greatest sport. It's intoxicating for the reasons I mentioned and so many more. Sure, steroids hurt, but if you think they aren't rampant in other sports you're crazy. It's a part of life. There were spitballs and spikes and stealing signs long before steroids showed up, and whatever shows up in the future that will give players or teams an edge on the competition, legal or not, will always come into play. I cheated in high school. I copied other student's work and plagurized at times, all to pass classes and get my diploma. Who am I to act holier than thou and pretend athletes wouldn't do the same to make it in their chosen profession? Do I want it to happen? No. In an ideal world it would be a fair playing field and everyone would show up only with their god-given talent and play their hearts out. But this isn't an ideal world, and I didn't know a thing about poetry in high school (I still don't). Such is life.

So here it is, not even February yet, and I'm already salivating for the next season to begin. As we get closer, I'll get more in-depth with my thoughts on the Tigers (this year and in years past). I'll tune into the World Baseball Classic, because it's baseball (though I'm really disappointed with the amount of U.S. athletes who are passing up playing, probably because I'd love it to succeed and give me something else relevant to watch). I play fantasy baseball too, so I'll be back to comment on my team after I draft (and by comment I mean complain). So, expect a lot more baseball in the coming months. Heck, expect it year round. I love baseball.

My Life With Sports

My life as a sports fan is a bit more complex than the average fan, or so I assume. No one in my family watches sports. My dad couldn't care less about any of it. He used to take me to Michigan football games when I was young, but he inherited the tickets from his father when he was too sick to attend them anymore. My brother loves the Red Wings, but that's as far as he goes, and even there his knowledge is sketchy at best, largely because he rarely watches them because he's convinced he curses them with his ratings. Not joking.

I'm guessing that some of it came from my grandfather. He loved University of Michigan sports. Mainly football, but if their basketball team was relevant he would tune in to their games. I know one thing for sure, I got my knack for yelling at the television from him (and probably a curse word or two). If it wasn't Michigan sports, it was Detroit Pistons or Detroit Tigers. My grandfather played basketball in college, and was pretty great too, but went to war and never picked it up again when he returned home. He used to show me his newspaper clippings, and his stats were definitely impressive.

However it came about, I'm a sports nut. I'll watch anything, much to my wife's chagrin. As for my sports allegiances, in almost all cases I root for Michigan teams. I love the Tigers, the Red Wings, and the Pistons. I love the University of Michigan, especially their football program. As such, 2008 was a rough year. Thanks to the Red Wings for making things a little less painful, but that happened before the misery that was the 2008 Tigers baseball season (something I saw coming a mile away) and the Wolverines football season (a train wreck I didn't think possible).

One team I don't root for is the Lions. This has nothing to do with their recent woes. I think most of it came from the fact that no one in my family rooted for them. Even my grandfather didn't seem to care one way or the other about them. When I was growing up, they weren't very good. That's no reason not to like them, and that wasn't really the reason, it was just a reason for my initial ambivalence. It was the ineptitude of the ownership that killed any respect I had for that franchise. It was the fact that their leadership was so soul-crushing, they pushed Barry Sanders into early retirement because he lost his love for the game, and saw no light at the end of the tunnel. His loyalty was rewarded with mediocrity, and he deserved better.

So when it comes to football, I root for the Colts. It started innocently enough. Being a Michigan fan, I'm a fan of any of their athletes (prepare for a major contradiction to this). When I was younger, I loved Jim Harbaugh. When he played for the Colts, and took them to the AFC Championship, and was one close-but-no-such-luck hail mary away from the Super Bowl, I was rooting hard for the Colts, and it was the first time I had rooted that hard for an NFL team. I also liked Peyton Manning when he was at Tennessee. I just loved watching him play. So when he was drafted by the Colts, my transition was complete. I was, and have been since, a Colts fan.

Here's that contradiction I spoke of earlier. As a Colts fan, there's one franchise I hate more than any other in the NFL, and that's the New England Patriots. I'm painfully aware that their quarterback is a Michigan alumni, and that he's one of the most successful QBs in the history of the NFL through his first seven seasons. Well, I can't stand him. I was happy for him during their first Super Bowl run, and have disliked him more and more each season. Perhaps that's me being a petty, jealous Colts fan. Perhaps it's that he comes off as a prima donna when off the football field. Probably a combination of both. But either way, he's one former Michigan athlete that I ignore as often as possible (though I will say I was a bit sad to see him injured; despite my not liking him or his team, I still like seeing good players and great games, and he was definitely missed this season).

In spite of my allegiances to teams, I love the sport more than I love any particular team. That goes for any sport. I want to see great games. I like hating loud-mouthed villains and rooting for humble heroes. I love watching great athletes compete (never more evident than with my love/hate relationship with Derek Jeter; I love how good he is, the fact that he delivers when it matters, and that he seems like a humble, likable guy; but I hate the Yankees and refuse to root for any of their athletes) and the drama that ensues. Sure I could do with less media. I could do with more integrity from ESPN. I could do without the enormous salaries that keep climbing each offseason. I could do without watching some of my favorite local players leave for or get traded to other teams. But all of that adds to the drama that is sports, and I love sports.

The Purpose of My Blog

Well, to be honest, it doesn't really have a purpose. I plan on using it to comment on films, books, sports, music, TV, and anything else in my life to which I feel like commenting. Mainly it's a place for me to put things down in one central location.

I'd like to use it at least once a day, but I know how I am, and I'll be lucky to use it on a weekly basis. My next couple entries will be introductions to my passions; mainly sports, films, books, etc., so that if you should choose to keep up with what I'm writing, you'll have a better feel for who I am as a person and how my interests came about.

That's my intro. Nothing flashy. My profile has general information about myself and my tastes. Figured I wouldn't post all of that twice.