Thursday, February 17, 2011

I've Got Baseball Fever Week: Part 4 - The Days of Our Lives


For all you non-sports fans out there, you'll be happy to hear my fever is breaking and I will return to my regularly scheduled series of ramblings after today. But there's only two strikes and two outs...I still got one more pitch before I swing and miss and put an end to the game.

As a writer, one aspect of baseball, and really all professional sports, that attracts me is the never ending story. There's a good reason sports are often compared to soap operas. Besides the strategy and drama that comes with every pitch, baseball provides plenty of story lines, ranging from heroic to bizarre to tragic.


Whether it's the story of a rookie that comes through in the playoffs or the super star that falters, or the team that comes together and clicks or the ones that collapse, the unfolding story lines that grow out of every season and through careers is what keeps me coming back. You never know what is going to happen on the diamond. There's no predicting unscripted entertainment.

Baseball is my summer reading with a cast of characters in the thousands and guaranteed ups and downs. The pages turn slowly, which is how I like them to turn. I'll keep my fingers crossed for a happy ending.



3 comments:

  1. I've been off line for a good week and how nice it was to log on to catch up and find one of my favorite subjects (after reading) - baseball. The ironic part, I just walked in from my youngest son's first league game for spring 2011 (they lost) and a tryout for a new team for the oldest (fingers crossed). I could watch baseball all day long and it wouldn't matter who was playing. I can still be optimistic about the one trip to the World Series my beloved Astros made even if we didn't win a single game because come on - it was still the World Series and I can say the same for my other baby, the Texas Rangers. And isn't just amazing how one little card and have one persons entire life printed on it.

    I always looked at baseball as a beautiful ballet, every play is effected by the play before it, its all tied together - just like a really good story.

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  2. Thanks Connie.

    I love Little League baseball. Once on vacation, I made the missus stop in the middle of nowhere because there was a little league game going on along the road. I was watching and a ground out, the kids on both teams charged off the field and switched places. and I'm saying to myself, "That's was only two outs." I look over and see the coaches with the same expression. They figured it out two.

    I wrote a brief series about a Little League team for an education publisher last year called The Mud Sox. It was a blast.

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  3. Besides waiting in line at midnight with my son for the last Harry Potter book, I waited in line for 4 hours to meet Ausmus and Bagwell before they left the Astros, only to miss the cut off by about 20 people. Disappointing but the excitement of being around other fans made it fun.

    With all three boys playing ball, I get more than my fill of games. :)

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