Man I used to love baseball. I remember watching the Cubs play almost everyday on WGN during the late 80’s – Andre Dawson, Mark Grace, Ryne Sandberg… Rafael Palmeiro was drafted by the Cubs in the first round of ’85. I’ll even put Harry Caray in as part of the team. I remember watching the games with my friend Brian. He’d keep track of the stats himself for some reason, I’d sing along with Harey. After the game we’d go outside and play with a tennis ball — the street was a home run, hitting any of the apartment buildings was an out. We even collected baseball cards. We didn’t try to find the ones that were “worth more” we collected our favorite players. I still have boxes of the things… I might just put them all on eBay.
In 1990 I was living closer to Cinci and we had a tv – I watched the Red dominate and sweep the World Series. I was even one of those goofy people jumping up and down on the front porch with a Reds banner and a broom. (Today it’d probably be a picture of Bud Selig and a shotgun.)
Chris Sabo, Barry Larkin, Eric Davis (I think that was before he was all cracked-out) and of course “You can’t run on…” Joe Oliver.
Joe and Marty and their annoying Kroger commercials.
Every once in awhile my dad would get us tickets to the Reds’ games and I’d sit there with my glove on, hoping to catch a foul ball. I played little league and even a little into high school. During the winter I’d play video games about baseball.
I’m probably starting to make it sound like baseball was more a part of my life than it really was. I guess I was probably about average as young American boys goes.
Then the 94-95 strike happened.
I never fully recovered from that and I know I’m not the only one that feels that way. I still enjoyed the game – an occasional softball game/league here and there, creating my own franchise on the Playstation… I just never really watched it anymore.
Recently that started to change. I still haven’t intentionally watched a game in 10 years, but if I was someplace where a game was on I’d end up paying at least a little attention to it. I think it’s finally crashed for good.
I didn’t really care about Sosa or Mcguire – it was fun to watch ‘the race’. I know there was the whole creatine thing… but they both put up good numbers well before all that too. Then there was Bonds… I never really liked him anyway. And come on, who did you think you were fooling Barry?! You double your HRs in a season over the course of two years?? Yeah, 15 years into your professional career you finally learn how to smash the hell out of the ball. You’re a dumbass. I don’t care if your roid-rage causes you to kill me – you’re a dumbass.
I never liked Canseco either… but for other reasons I won’t get into right now.
But Raffy… why? I’m just at a loss for words. You’ve had a pretty good 20 year run, why mess with this stuff? Why sit there in front of congress and say you’ve never done it. It was easy to believe Canseco was full of it – he’s a media-whore schmuck trying to sell a book. But you… you were one of the guys that started my love for the game 20 years ago! You seemed to play with heart and class… now you’re just lumped in with the rest of the over-paid junkies.
And 10 games? Another problem with baseball. You fail that kind of test in other sports, you get banned for life. I guess I’ll just stick with Nascar – the worst that happens there is your favorite driver gets killed.
hahahaha
pwned