Spring and Baseball

We did our draft for the upcoming fantasy baseball season. I won’t go into details because how you think you are going to do and how you actually end up doing are often two different things. Come away happy with the draft and then your players get hurt or have production fall off and then it becomes a long summer.

Baseball was the first sport I really followed. Also the first one I played as I did the little league thing for a couple of years. Enjoyed it but the age cutoff kind of worked against me and I wasn’t really good enough to face older and more serious players.

And of course there were the baseball cards. Back in my day, we’d bike all over town going into every drug and dime store we could reach to see if they had any. Always a great day when they first came out. Still have them all boxed up somewhere downstairs. It was a hot commodity awhile back but I don’t think so anymore. I hang on to them more for the memories than for any potential investment value.

We did go to a sports card collectors conventions a few times when we were teens. Tried to fill in the gaps from the first year I collected but could never actually pull it off. Again, this was really before it became “hot” so things were a little more low key. Would always buy some older cards just for fun. Players we never saw but knew for some reason.

Got hooked on the numbers as well. This was long before “analytics” took over the game and I guess we were all looking at the wrong things. Then we found my Dad’s collection of old baseball guides and registers and you realized that there was all this history associated with baseball. Going over the numbers and trying to figure out who was really good back then. All of that helped with the attraction to baseball and, even though I’m more of a football fan know, the history of football doesn’t hold the same attraction that baseball did.

Of course we dabbled in other cards. The problem with football cares is you’d get an offensive lineman and then the back would be boring. No numbers to relate to so how could you tell if someone was good or not. Same with the other sports because I didn’t follow them closely enough to know what was “good” and what was “not so good”.

We grew up in western Michigan about halfway between Detroit and Chicago. The Tigers were the first team I followed because Dad was a big Tiger fan. At that time, the local radio station was owned by the same guy who owned the Tigers and they’d always give away free tickets if you could answer a trivia question. Most of the time I knew the answer but either couldn’t get through or got beat out by someone else. Pretty sure I won at least once but those details are lost to the past.

I know the Tigers were the first game I attended. It was Willie Horton bat day. You probably don’t know Willie Horton but he was always one of my favorite Tigers. Don’t have the bat anymore. Not sure where it ended up.

When cable first hit our area, one of the channels we got was WGN from Chicago. At that time, the Cubs played all their games in the day so, in the summer, you could play outside all morning and then watch the game. We’d even tune in for the stupid pre game show just waiting for the game to start. Pretty sure I saw my first Cubs game on my birthday and that became an annual thing as well. (Or at least an almost annual thing).

And baseball was a radio thing. Dad didn’t like music so any road trips we made were made without the radio unless it was dark and then he’d tune to dial to see if there was a ballgame on. Something I actually still do from time to time if I’m out on a spring or summer evening.

Somewhere along the way, football replaced baseball as my sport of choice. And I really only follow those two. But the opening of the baseball season is always a good time. Probably because I’m old and it brings back all the memories I discussed above. But now baseball is more of a background thing for me. I’ll have a game on when I’m doing other things because I really can’t sit and watch a game anymore. Must be all the social media stuff messing with my attention span because baseball is all about long pauses and now I want to push the fast forward button to get to the action.

I’ll admit I’d be less interested if it wasn’t for fantasy. That gives me the reason to check the box scores and keep up with who is having a good year and who isn’t. Also who is hurt which just seems to happen more and more these days.

So baseball season kicks off again this week even though it is still cold in a lot of places. I’m happy to see it though.