I Love Baseball

As my first post on my latest blog, I thought I'd ruminate on America's favorite pastime - baseball.

I grew up in the cold prairies of this country, and our sports were football and b-ball, and of course hockey due to the fact that our winter lasted 9 months our of the year. Frickin chilly it wss!

We really didn't have much in the way of baseball. The closest team to us was the Minnesota Twins, and, well, need I say more?

Upon moving to St. Louis in 1990 to attend college, I was immediately thrown into the world of professional sports - the Cards & the Blues.

The Blues took - the Cards did not.

Hockey is non-stop action - the sharp whoosh! of the blades scraping the ice, the FIGHTS!, and the frosty air were a sweet and gentle reminder of home.

Baseball, I found, was another story. Baseball was boring. It was hot. It lasted FOREVER, and I just didn't get it.

I've been to a handful of games in the 20 years I've lived in the Lou, and while I enjoyed the frosty & overpriced beer, the grease-oozing dogs wrapped in equally greasy paper and the endless chatter of die-hard fans around me, I never took to the game.

Well, color me Cardinal red because I am not only on the baseball bus, I'm driving the sucker.

I am a fan. A special kind of fan.

I am a fan in the way that you learn to love your husband from an arranged marriage.

When my brother announced a couple months back that he is the proud owner of a bazillion season tickets, the feeling started to sneak in then. The feeling that I was missing out on something really great.

What am I missing out on?

To name a few things, the camaraderie, history & integrity of the sport.

Also, there's the strategy that I have yet to understand but am willing to, much as a wife in an arranged marriage is willing to cook her new husband's favorite meals.

What I like best is the way baseball brings together people from all walks of life. That's the really cool thing, especially in a town that's still very much segregated. In the height of baseball season, Busch Stadium is a sweaty melting pot of screaming fans, all rooting for one thing. A win.

On what is a historic day (for me and the sport of baseball), I've come to realize that there are many things I love about baseball. And so, I will love it and hope it loves me back.

Furthermore, I will embrace the things about baseball I don't understand and hope that someone will explain them to me, someday. (Kathy, Jason, Scott, Jeff and Albo, I'm talking to you).

And I will accept my fate as a St. Louis Native (since 1990, which is my entire adult life so it COUNTS, dammit) and support my home team.

And I'll be there on opening day, regardless of whether Pujols is there or has turned traitor and is a Cubbie.