Baseball: more than a Game

It's late September, and that means it's a time that baseball really takes on a meaning of it's own.  The desire for October relevance takes on a feverish and desperate tone.  Even fair-weather and casual fans start dialing in to see what's happening in America's past time.

However for me; I was born with baseball in my blood.  There was never a series, a game, and inning that I can remember not caring about.  In elementary school I'd tune in or record the games of my favorite baseball team, the Minnesota Twins.  We're talking about a time in the mid and late 90s when the Twins were consistently losing 90 plus games.  It never mattered to me because I loved and still do love this game.  

My earliest memories include playing catch with my grandpa, taking batting practice in my spacious front yard, pitching a tennis ball against the garage, and of course competitively playing the sport I loved all through high school.  There was never a moment I didn't have my glove with me, and the two of us were always the best of friends.  Luckily I had real friends who were as impassioned toward the great game as me, and we continually played pick up ball, swapped cards, and listened to the game while pouring over freshly printed stats.   Baseball is without question always associated with my fondest memories.  

That's why when the Twins surged early and became relevant again for the 2015 season, it didn't matter to me that their chances would dwindle late.  As of this writing on 9/26, the Twins have a projected 6% chance of making the postseason.  I could bore you with every detail concerning where the organization could have made this decision or done that and likely have pushed these probabilities higher, but I won't.  That's a discussion for another blog, conversation, or day.  By now you've realized that their playoff chances depleting from 30% 12 or so days ago to 6% now doesn't get someone like me down.  

Baseball is so much more than the outcomes, the stats, or the sum of its parts.  It's an experience that some of us hold so sacred because it represents our fondest memories in so many stages of life.  Those are the kinds of experiences that stay with you forever.  That is why Baseball will always be America's Great Pastime for as long as I have breath.  

Do I take this "sport" and "game" too far?  I probably do, just as my grandfather before me did.  But baseball will always represent excitement, friendships, competition, joy, and even pain for me.  Baseball to me, truly is, more than a game.