BASEBALL TONIGHT
I just got chills. I’m having a total guy moment. It is opening night of the new baseball season, and my favorite team has just taken the field for the first of 162 games this year. I love it. The unshaven boys of spring (training) have emerged from the desert healthy and ready to go, and I have a good feeling about their chances of winning the division and making it past the first round of playoffs this year. The uniforms are clean, but I look forward to the slides and catches that will promptly wear them in. The home crowd is dutifully booing the visiting opposition. The Golden Gloves have been rightfully doled out, and now it’s game time.
I admit to watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN. Every night. And I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new book “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports.” Of course that means that I need to find time to finally finish “Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball” first. I was at PacBell Park when Bonds hit two historic home runs (numbers 71 & 72) in 2001. I will always remember the absolute appreciation and joy emanating from the crowd at deafening levels, the physical response throughout the stadium. However skeptical I may be now, neither this new book nor the endless speculation about Barry will ever ruin that night for me. It is forever etched into my short list of fantastic sports memories.
Although I grew up near two ballparks and attended high school with the kids of several major leaguers, I was not a true baseball fan until about ten years ago. In retrospect, I should have gone to more games and saved those damn baseball cards. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wishes they had predicted and prepared for the advent of eBay…