Hot damn! It’s spring! Finally!
I was never in my life a sports fan. I followed baseball for a while in the late 80s and 90s and then fell off the wagon again while I pursued other summer activities. With the turn of the century, I started paying attention again and slowly developed into the ravenous scourer of baseball news I am today.
I once tried to figure out why I liked baseball so much. I enjoy the game and dig the personalities but I don’t schedule my life around televised Phillies games the way people do for football. I don’t always know every player and every position. I don’t have a closet full of jerseys and paraphernalia. What’s the draw?
Then it hit me. Baseball means spring. And summer. And those lovely crisp days of early fall. Football, basketball and hockey all start when the world is dying: the leaves start to turn brown, the grass dries up and dies off, the bitter cold of the long winter creeps in. Baseball starts when the daffodils come up. It rolls into the prime of the season when the grass is green, the sun is warm and there’s nothing you’d rather do than stretch out on the deck with a cold beer and relax in the knowledge that all is right with the world. Baseball lives and dies with the good seasons.
Finally, today is the start of Spring Training. The world is full of possibilities. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. Somewhere it’s positively warm today and the flowers are coming out of hiding. Hot damn baby! I can almost smell the grilling mandingos, the freshly watered infield sod, the stale piss festering on concrete floors.
I can’t wait to see the beer lady again.