(no subject)

[mmerriam]

Popcorn! Peanuts!

My wonderful wife, the beautiful careswen bought us tickets to go see the St. Paul Saints play this afternoon, as her anniversery gift to me.

I'm thrilled.

I love baseball.

I've loved baseball since I was a kid. I played ball in the sandlot, in school, and even walked on to my college team. I played high school ball for a pro scout. I was a pretty good high school pitcher and adequate at firstbase.

I love baseball.

But not major league baseball.

I once loved major league baseball. I grew up in a family of Detroit Tiger fans. I grew up talking about such great players as Norm Cash, Denny McLain, Mickey Lolich, and of course, Al Kaline. While living in Oklahoma I listened to pro ball on the radio, staying up late to hear games played by the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers, two teams that, for the most part, stunk during the seventies. But they were my teams.

I loved major league baseball.

But major league baseball changed for the worse. When I was a kid a working class kind of guy could still afford season tickets in a decent part of the park. Players made good money, but you could still identify with them as working stiffs.

Then the money got madly out of control. Players changed teams yearly, so that you really weren't cheering the team's players on, you just cheered the guy in the right uniform. Every year at the All-Star game George Steinbrenner would show up with a U-Haul truck and a fist full of inflated contracts. There was a strike. There was another strike. There was a lock-out.

Then it happened. My beloved Texas Rangers won their division, and were play-off bound for the first time ever. Then there was a strike, and post-season was canceled.

That was it, I was done. My love affair with baseball ended. I've seen no reason to love the major league again. I'm sure the Twins are fun to watch, but...

... but I still love minor league baseball. I love the goofiness, the small parks, the weird mascots, and especially the player's that don't make a gazillion dollars. I loved the old Oklahoma City 89ers. I can't wait to see the Saints.

I don't care if the Saints win or lose, I just want to go to the game, watch players who play because they also love the game, eat crappy ballpark food, and sit among other fans.

I want to regain that childhood love, if just for one night.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I like minor league games, too -- I grew up with the Omaha Royals and the College World Series. But I think Major League teams have more consistency than you're giving them credit for. Torii Hunter has been with the Twins several seasons. Koskie, Radke, Jones, Mientkiewitz (did I get that spelling right?)...sure, they got rid of My Boy Pierzinski, and we can't chant "Ed-die, Ed-die" for Guardado any more, but those guys have been there awhile, and the minor league teams are even more transient. There's time in the baseball season to know the players a bit, to have little cheers for them, to have reasons to like them. There's time for them to become "my team," and I watch less baseball than timprov by a long shot.

When they get traded, it gives me a reason to be happy to see an opposing team. "Oh, look, it's the Nice Ugly Man! Go, Nice Ugly Man!" "Hey, they're playing the Little Jackass! Wooooo, Little Jackass!" I'm not a serious baseball fan, so a lot of the names are just names to me. But the ones who used to be on "my team" are more fun to watch, to cheer on even if I want them to lose.

Also, I believe that every team should have a round guy like Matt LeCroix (spelling again?), because it's just so darn fun to watch Dom DeLuise run the bases in a big league park.