It’s Baseball’s Opening Day. How I Wish I Cared

I’ve spent the day eying a trickle of Tweets tagged with #openingday. In general, they seem to be originating from one of three types: Older men, who remember when baseball really was America’s game (and when uttering the phrase “Boy, fetch my bags” to a black bellhop didn’t garner such angry glances), younger guys who avidly keep up with all four of the major sports and women who smoke a lot of weed. I don’t know why that last demographic is so into the national pastime, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t. The remainder of the world is either trying to act like it cares about baseball or just going on with business as usual. Me? Well, I’m somewhere in the middle.


There was a time in my youth that I lived and breathed baseball. Owning the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie card was all I wanted to do when I grew up. A childhood trip to Memorial Stadium is the only family outing I remember that didn’t end up with my brother and I locked in mortal combat as my mom wept and my dad stalked off to smoke a cigarette as he cursed us in Greek under his breath. I still have the hat of every Little League team I played for. So what happened?


There is no singular answer. The ’90 Lockout and ’94 Strike definitely put a damper on things. It was also around ’94 that I decided that sports were unequivocally “gay” and I’d instead grow my hair out, own a Metallica shirt for each day of the week and shift the focus of my intellect from hitting curve balls to the creation of bongs from every single object I laid eyes on. Plus, high school homework actually took time to complete. If I was going to keep a high GPA while still watching six hours of tv a day, something had to give.

Years later, my love of sports has returned, but it’s mostly focused upon football, a game whose faster pace suits my ADD nature. (By the third inning of most baseball games, I’m performing Bishop’s knife trick to keep myself awake.) Baseball now occupies a weird, undefinable niche in my world, somewhat akin to that of a girl who once broke your heart now back in your life as a friend. You know how it is: The instant you’re around them, your thoughts drift from “Well, this is nice and familiar” to “Why am I here and what did I ever seen in this twat to begin with?” to “I wonder if she’ll go down on me.” I suppose only the first two apply to baseball, but the analogy is still valid, more or less.

Tagged as: baseball, sports.