A few years ago I remember a family friend talking to my mother about seasonal affective disorder. The friend replied to my mother’s question about it by saying, “Of course people get a little bit depressed at the end of winter. Football season is over and baseball season hasn’t started yet.”
Except now it has.
Last night Brett Myers gave up four runs in the first two innings and Derek Lowe was dominant, allowing only two hits in eight innings as the Braves beat the Phillies 4-1.
I now sit here, seemingly appropriately having been let out of class early, watching Johan Santana do his job in Cincinnati.
Later this afternoon will C.C. Sabathia will take the mound in the Yankees first game of 2009. And then 161 more games will follow for every major league baseball team.
More than any sport baseball provides fans with a true champion. Though they only work for three or four hours a day that most people know about, baseball players endure 162 games playing six or seven days a week, nagging injuries like strains and bruises, bickering teammates, and sometimes day games after nights of heavy drinking. From Spring Training in February until the playoffs are over in October players go all out (*cough* right Manny being Manny? *cough, cough) to play America’s pastime at its highest level. From players who can’t drink legally to 46-year-old Jamie Moyer, who is entering his 23rd season in Major League Baseball, men take to perfectly manicured fields inside 50,000 seat stadiums to play our country’s game. (Yes, I know Japan has won the World Baseball Classic both times that it has been played and other countries have baseball ingrained in their cultures, but baseball is American first.)
Many young boys grow up hoping they can be professional baseball players. They imagine the scenarios – up to bat with two outs, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded – but most of us end up feeding our families by some other form of employment. We are construction workers, real estate agents, bankers, janitors, mechanics, waiters, and washed-up athletes whose sports careers ended in high school and now report sports news just to stay close to the atmosphere of baseball.
Us fanatics and addicts wish for baseball all year. We know every statistic, player, and rumor. We know that the same day the Yankees signed Mark Teixeira they also signed backup catcher Kevin Cash, who is now in AAA. We know that Cody Ransom and David Freese should fill in decently for Alex Rodriguez and Troy Glaus. We know who David Aardsma, Travis Ishikawa, Elvis Andrus, Denard Span, Matt Tuiasosopo, and Josh Johnson are and what their prospects are for the year.
We know all this and wish we could be out there cracking line-drives, diving for grounders in the hole, striking out Albert Pujols, wearing rally caps, charging the mound after a high and tight fastball, and flirting with hot girls in the stands.
Now baseball season is finally here. We are content. No, we are ecstatic!
-Andrew Sagarin
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