Let’s veer away from the topic of music for just a moment. I’d like to briefly talk about one of my other interests, baseball… but first, some history.
I suppose I love baseball because my dad loved baseball at some point. As he got older, he stopped watching baseball in favor of golf for some reason, but I remember watching many games with him as a child. Something about the cat-and-mouse game between pitcher and hitter appealed to me… I liked that unlike most other sports in this country, there is no clock… I imagine that like a million other boys and girls, I played catch with my dad whilst pretending to be one of the pitchers I would see on TV.
Speaking of TV… this particular device greatly increased my love of the game. The closest Major League Baseball franchise to where I grew up is the Cincinnati Reds… and of course, going to school, just about all of the other kids were Reds fans. Not me. See, we had cable, and just about every day during baseball season, the Atlanta Braves were on our cable, because their owner also owned his own TV station. I watched the games just about every night… clearly, when the Braves were on the West Coast, I couldn’t watch the games that were past my bedtime… but I watched just about all of the home games. Now, this was in the 80s when the Braves were awful. Awful teams, hideous uniforms, but I loved them anyway. I remember watching Dale Murphy (he used to be my favorite), Bob Horner, Kent Oberkfell, Rafael Ramirez, Ozzie Virgil, Zane Smith, Rick Mahler, Bruce Benedict, Glen Hubbard, Deion James… so many mediocre players, but I didn’t know it at the time.
Ok, enough of the past, let’s talk about NOW. I am still a Braves fan, and although I like to travel and see baseball games, I don’t think I’ll be seeing them at home anymore. See, they moved out of town a couple of years ago, and their new ballpark is way out in the suburbs in a very high-traffic area without public transportation, which makes it very inconvenient for someone to fly in to catch a game. That’s ok, the last couple of times my wife and I went to see the Braves, they were in Toronto or Milwaukee or elsewhere.
Currently, the Barves (sic) are 18-20, and sit 4 games out of first place. The offense is pretty good. Some of the young starting pitchers are pretty good. The bullpen is a dumpster fire, and the front office didn’t do anything in the offseason to improve it. The lack of quality relief pitching has cost them several games this year already. It’s a long season, but I think I’m already running out of patience.
Some positive things about the baseball season… Mike Trout is fantastic. This is something that you already know if you watch baseball, but I love to see him play. Back over in the friendly NL, I love watching Acuña hit...I love watching Albies hit, but I wish he would be a bit more selective at the plate… I love watching Freeman hit...I very much love watching Christian Yelich hit.
This past weekend, I was able to cross another ballpark off the “baseball parks I’ve seen a game in” list… it was Coors Field in Denver. It isn’t my favorite park, but it is a very nice place to catch a game (even if that game happens to be between the Padres and Rockies as ours was), and I recommend stopping by if you have the chance.