Wednesday, September 23, 2009

I'm gonna miss this

Yesterday about 3pm there was a woman in the lobby of my office building with stacks of free Nationals tix, so I scooped up four of them and went to the ballpark after work.

Adam Dunn hit a homer - his 38th of the season. He's already hit his 100 RBI. Oh, and he's hitting .279 right now, making this pretty much the best season of his career.

That was the extent of good baseball. The Dunn bomb gave the Nationals a 2-1 lead, and it was the last time Major League baseball was played on that field by the home team, for the Little Leaguers took over after that. What a craptastic game.

Did I mention Adam Dunn hit his 38th homer of the season and is batting .279?

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Pedro!

Been pretty busy lately, trying to save the world and all. Or at least the country that seems to be at the center of all of the world's conflicts - past, present, and probably but hopefully not future.

I was thinking about the season and how I haven't been to a baseball game since the Reds came to Washington at the beginning of June - no wait, Randy Johnson's 300th, whichever came last - and how this is pretty new to me, this not paying attention to baseball, and it really makes me quite sad.

You know about my trip, but that was only two weeks, and it was in July and this is now September and it's cold and gray and the leaves are shaking with September's sad song and there's a sort of violence on the television screens that acts as The Sport and all of the color is starting to drain from the world.

I hate it.

I hate it because September baseball has been meaningless for me for the past decade. Sure, you get to see all the rookies take a few swings and all, but for far too long we've held out hope in those guys and nothing ever comes of it.

I saw this guy in the Metro this morning wearing a Reds hat and jersey - a real fan, not wearing it just for the colors - and I said "nice shirt" and he said "I'm going to see Adam Dunn tonight" and I said "Me too!" But I lied. I'm not going to see Dunn. I'm going to see Pedro. Dunn isn't Dunn with that Natinals stitched upon his chest. No, Dunn was in the wrong uniform all season and his real team scored fewer runs than everyone else in baseball.

Ah, remember the days when Dunn and Kearns were the future, back when "wait til next year" actually meant something...

Well, Reds, I'm not waiting anymore. I haven't given you a dime since that last time I saw you lose in DC when it was still spring and you still had a winning record. I knew even then it wouldn't last. I have watched a handful of games on television since then. I'm not sure you won even one of them.

So I'm going to a baseball game tonight, and I'm going to see a GOOD team play with a future Hall of Famer taking the mound in a funny colored uniform. It's a cold and gray day, a rotten vegetable of a day, just like the taste baseball has left in my mouth this season.
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