For as long as I can remember, and that's quite a long time, I have thought I should be a baseball fan, but I have never ever been a baseball fan. Soccer? I've been #RCTID since 1976. Football? I've been a Seahawks fan since I learned to understand football. Basketball? I can vividly remember celebrating the Trailblazers one and only NBA championship in 1977 outside my youth pastor's home. A number of friends and I (one of whom is especially important to this story) ran outside and stopped traffic on the street as we hooted and hollered and whooped in joy.
There was baseball in the Pacific Northwest too, we had iterations of the Portland Beavers and the Portland Mavericks, and of course there were the Mariners in Seattle. I never once attended a baseball game, nor did I watch baseball on TV. As a fan of sport, I knew some player names, I knew someone named Ichiro Suzuki played for the Mariners (I couldn't tell you what position he played). I knew that someone named Ken Griffey, Jr. played centerfield for the same team. I knew that a guy named Pete Rose played, managed, placed bets on his own team in Cincinnati, and as such will never ever make it to the Baseball Hall of Fame despite a career that should make him a shoo-in. I also knew that there is only one person to have performed the National Anthem, performed as an umpire at the same game, and saved the Queen of England from a murder plot at a baseball game. Even knowing all those things, I just couldn't figure out how to appreciate baseball.
That's weird. I'm a nerd, I love video games, I have spent hours playing Football Manager, and RPGs like Skyrim, Fallout, and Baldur's Gate 3. Football sims and RPGS are all about statistics. I have also spent hours playing games like Civilization, XCom, and Massive Chalice. Those types of games are all about strategy. Given I enjoy both statistics and strategy, I should be a huge baseball fan. After all, baseball is a combination of statistics, and strategy, driven by players with outstanding athletic abilities. But I'm not--at least not yet.
My friend Mark (he was one of those celebrating the Trailblazers' championship mentioned above) and I have known each other since we were six years old. He is also a huge baseball fan. If you asked what team he supports, it would be the Mariners, but he is a supporter of baseball, not just the Mariners. He is the kind of fan who can rattle off statistics and anecdotes about any number of baseball teams. He's a veritable encyclopedia of baseball knowledge. I have told him more than once that I thought I should be a baseball fan but was unable to become one. He is exactly four months older than me, which makes it easy to remember his birthday, and I make a habit of calling him every year. Two years ago, on that birthday call I said "Mark, I really want to become a baseball fan, who should I support." He thought for a moment and then said "Timothy, you should be a Dodgers fan, they're good, they have some great players, but there's no World Series guarantee there."
So, I became a Dodgers "fan" and then ignored baseball for another year. However, last year I didn't ignore baseball. I didn't pay attention through the first two-thirds of the season, but by the last third of the season I was reading all I could about the Dodgers. I was also playing Out of the Park Baseball 2024. I started paying attention to game scores and team records. I couldn't tell you what an ERA or a OBP or SLG is, but at least I was paying attention, and by the time the playoffs came around I was committed to watching as much of them as I could (my wife and daughter were definitely not pleased by that commitment).
Of course, my Dodgers exited far too early. Their pitching wasn't up to snuff, and their bats--well their bats fell silent. The early exit for the Dodgers did not kill my desire to watch the playoffs. Poor Mark had to put up with nightly questions and commentary from me which he graciously responded to. I groused about the fans in Tampa Bay (how can the stands be empty when your team is in the playoffs!) and talked excitedly about how awesome the fans in Minnesota are. I asked things like "Why are starting pitchers starters, and relievers relievers, and what exactly is a closer?", and "When is a batter credited with a sacrifice vs. just counted as out?"
Along the way I adopted an additional team, I was told that it was ok to do so as my original team was handed to me as opposed to a natural progression of becoming a fan. Some people will call me a bandwagoner, but my adoption of that second team started very early in the playoffs. It started when I saw this play. My understanding was that pitchers protect themselves, and their teammates work extremely hard to protect them also, so when a pitcher sprints and dives for a pop-up from a bad bunt, I knew I needed to pay attention to that team.
So now I have two teams, my original Dodgers in the National League, and the Texas Rangers in the American League, and for the first time ever I'm looking forward to Spring Training.
I’ve never been a big fan of watching baseball on TV, but I have a soft spot in my heart for attending minor league games. In my younger days I travelled extensively for my consulting job and I’d try to fit in a minor league game in a local town, if my schedule permitted.
I remember one lovely day where I walked up to the box office for the Winston-Salem Warthogs, a single-A team that I knew nothing about. My ticket put in the first row over the visitors bench. I remember the sun, the billboard loaded outfield fence, and the high jinx between the innings to keep the crowd entertained — the sumo races being particularly entertaining. I don’t remember who won, hopefully the Warthogs.
Congratulations on the new newsletter! It’ll be fun to see how the season unfolds for you!