Baseball Season is Finally Here!

Spring Training is done and the big season is here. I am ready. I am more than ready. In fact, I already have my Nats hat on and have started wearing my lucky Washington Nationals underwear (Blue for Away games, Red for Home games). This could be the year!

In the off-season, I think every fan has high hopes for their team. No one starts out the season hoping for next-to-last place, or hoping to send just one player from their team to the All Star Game. We all are aiming for the fences, but in a few weeks, we will all be ready for a few good base hits.

 I begin my pre-season ritual with watching one of my favorite games, which I conveniently watch on DVD, the Cal Ripken, Jr.’s  “2131” game, where Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s streak. I can remember it like it was yesterday: the ovations, Cal hugging his kids between innings, panning up to his father (and President Clinton and VP Gore) in the boxes, all of the baseball legends in the stands. It still brings a lump to my throat.

 I don’t know that we have charismatic characters like Cal out there these days, but I hope that someday we will. No one will be near his “Iron Man” streak for a long time, and few players touch the baseball community as he did.

 Another part of my pre-season ramping up is visiting my local Minor league baseball parks. Yesterday, I visited the Arthur Perdue (of Chicken fame) Stadium in Salisbury, Maryland, the home of the Delmarva Shorebirds, a Single “A” affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles.  This morning, I ran down to the Harry Grove Stadium,  home of the Frederick Keys, another Single “A” affiliate of the Orioles.  Today, since I will be out playing golf near Hagerstown, I will be sliding by Hagerstown’s Municipal Stadium, home of the Hagerstown Suns, a Single “A” affiliate of the Washington Nationals. 3 Stadiums in 2 days, and only a few Maryland/DC Area stadiums left to visit.

 Minor league games are a blast to go to. If you have never been to one, check them out. Most of America is within an hour of at least one minor league team, and the players in the minors really do play hard, they play for the love of the game and hope for the future. These are not guys that take off weeks of games because they have “thigh tenderness” or shin splints. These are the real players.

 I actually dated a player when he played for one of the local minor league teams, and he said he played harder for the minors than he ever did when he finally made it up to the majors before an injury led him to his current career in real estate.

I am stuck in a hard place. I am a season ticket holder for the Nationals, but live the same distance to DC as I do to Baltimore, the team I grew up with. Neither team is likely to make it to the World Series this year, but we can hope for it, right? Heck, it is possible to have a “Beltway Series” where the Nats face the O’s in the World Series. It is also possible that George W. Bush will come out as gay and profess his undying love for Cher and open up a show in Vegas. It’s possible, but not likely.

Every team has a chance at winning the series at this time of the season, even the Cubs!

This season, I will be rooting for the Nationals, largely because their stadium is on the Metro (subway) and the games are fun. I also think I look better in the Nat’s red and white as opposed to the Oriole’s orange and black.

What I love most about this time of year is that we can look at the optimism the new baseball season brings and hopefully many of us can remember the first time we went to a baseball game at the big stadium and smelled the freshly manicured grass, the broiling hot dogs, the smell of last season’s beer leaching from the stadium walls, the players bent over showing off their last leg workout, and the beer man that comes right to your seat to sell you a beer that costs almost as much as it does at the nightclub.

I am trying to figure out the cutest baseball player in the MLB, and am coming up short on ideas this year. Drop me a line if you can think of a good nominee.

Happy Baseball Season everyone!