Put me in coach!

I have a good job. I know that you wouldn't be able to tell from my amount of complaining about it, but that was mostly due to my boss whose last day was Friday. Now I have no boss. But even when I did, there were perks. Like listening to music all day long. I know a lot of places don't allow it, but I have a whole laptop full of music. I just put on the headphones, hit scramble, and listen the day away.

Right now, John Fogarty's Centerfield is on. Just the opening guitar rift of that song is enough to bring visions of sunshine and a wave of excitement over a baseball fan.

Well, beat the drum and hold the phone - the sun came out today!
We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field.
A-roundin’ third, and headed for home, it’s a brown-eyed handsome man;
Anyone can understand the way I feel.

Oh yeah, we can understand the feeling. Across the Baseblogosphere right now, sentiments of excitement and anticipation are expressed with exclamation points, something we are all feeling right now while ice and snow coat the Northern half of the country. No other sport has the same sense of anticipation, for with baseball comes warmth and light and all of those beautiful things that make life so great. While football, hockey, and basketball are starting, winter's impending gloom is whispered in autumn winds through rustling, dying leaves. Baseball is renewal. We're the only ones whose hearts jump when a few players show up for workouts nearly two months before the season begins. Sure, fans of other sports feel excitement for the start of their seasons, but it isn't the same thing. It can't be. The very nature of baseball is how it represents joie de vivre.

And now I must go out to the delightful wintry mix and hope the bus doesn't slide off the road on my way home. (Stupid snow day nazis making us work in this mess, mutter, mutter...)

Baseball on the Brain - Adam Dunn at the Grammys

Feeling uninspired...waiting for the wonderful wintry mix to begin its long descent from the clouds onto the vast labyrinth of pavement and concrete plaguing the DC area, coating them with a treacherous layer of NO WORK. Come on, let it sleet down! Let it pour icy sheets of wonderful idleness! Let it send us that coveted childhood candy called a SNOW DAY!

The Nats pitchers (all 5,000 of them) and catchers report today along with the hated Yankees. Tomorrow at this time they will be throwing a ball around in the warm Florida sunshine, stretching out their muscles, learning each other's names. By the end of the week, the pitchers and catchers from every team will begin to tan themselves in warmth and light while we still sit here in winter storm warnings hoping for a day off the monotony of the office.

This is the time of year where reminders of baseball are everywhere - farfetched reminders, like thinking you hear someone yell "Play ball!" on a street corner or seeing homeplate in the cracks in the sidewalk. Other reminders make sense, like the smell of hotdogs infiltrating the air from the corner stands. I went to an Irish pub on Saturday night where the waiter looked like Adam Dunn, then, when I watched the Chili Peppers on the Grammys last night, there was Adam Dunn sitting behind the drum kit! He's everywhere!

Ok, you can't get the Chad Smith resemblance without the Will Farrell connection. See, Farrell looks like both Dunn and Smith, but without him to compare to, you can't see why I saw Adam Dunn sitting behind the drum kit last night. (I'm not the only one on the Farrell-Smith thing.)

No picture of the pub waiter is available...
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Nationals Fans - Everything's Not Lost

Baseball is a funny game, as Joe Garagiola once wrote. Baseball fans sit around for two cold months before we begin to go mad with anticipation for the start of a new season. We have countdowns until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, guys who are just going down to stretch out their arms and toss a ball around. When that day comes, we have another countdown until exhibition games begin. Then, when that day finally arrives, we have another countdown until the holy day itself - Opening Day.*

Usually Spring Training is a time for hope, when every team has a chance to compete for the coveted holy grail. However, market disparities coupled with a few bad GMs, presidents, and owners have taken that hope and squashed it before pitchers and catchers even get on their planes to Florida and Arizona. It appears that the Lerners, Stan Kasten, and/or Leatherpants Vampire, in their failure to sign even one decent pitcher, have thrown this season in the garbage. But don't give up hope!

Remember last year when Mike "Irish" O'Connor,** a guy who hadn't been considered a high prospect, came in to replace Patterson and pitched decently, though his record doesn't reflect it, until his arm failed him? Who knows if there is another young arm that could rescue this team from the pit of despair? What about a fully healed Mike Hinckley finally fulfilling his potential? What about that Perez guy who came up in September and went 2-1 with an ERA of 3.86 in 21 innings pitched? Or Jerome Williams, who was good with the Giants? And heck, maybe even Patterson's arm will stay attached to his body.

Why do I feel such optimism? Perhaps it's today's sunshine or the excitement of having season tickets. Maybe it's a bit of residual excitement leftover from the magic of 2005. But more likely it is that I am desperately clinging to that irrational spring hope we as baseball fans are entitled to. In the end, does it really matter?*** We have baseball. We have sunny day games and hot dogs and roaring crowds and glowing fields and "Beer here!" and the crack of the bat.

*Though I watch the pre-Opening Day game on ESPN, I don't consider it Opening Day and would love to see it abolished and the Reds given their rightful place as the true opening team.

**Whom I like a lot after the Winter Caravan meeting.

***Yes, losing stinks.

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The Players Are Human?

I am sitting at my desk right now staring out at the brilliant blue sky and daydreaming about baseball. I can feel the cold creeping around the old window but the light of the sky is beginning to give off a spring color and makes it tough to stay inside and wait around for baseball to begin.

I was thinking about the players getting ready to go off to Spring Training. We demand a lot from players, don't we? We cheer or scream at them, bug them for autographs, praise or complain about them through blogs and newspapers, and wear their names on our backs or their images across our chests. I know that I, for one, am not interested in their personal lives, but then again, I've never really been into celebrity worship (unless that celebrity is one of four members of a certain Irish rock band!)

We've reached the final two weeks before the grind begins for them. I imagine this is the time of year when they try to cram as much time with their families as possible, when they begin to think about what they need to pack, when phone calls are coming in about airline tickets, and, I'd like to think, a little nervous excitement starts to rumble inside them. It must be pretty tough, though, leaving their families at this time when the kids are still in school and can't travel with them.

Oh, baseball, hurry up and get here!
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Wherefore art thou, Baseball?

It was by accident that I came upon a discovery which is one of those that kind of changes your outlook on life. I say kind of because there is no way for me to prove the discovery to be factual, yet the circumstances that surround it are so overwhelming in my untrained mind that they have to be explored.

That cornfield in Iowa had never left my mind, but it had become fuzzy like the ghostly opponents in Shoeless Joe. I'd read the book years ago but can't remember whether it was in college or the Army or some lesser defined time in my life. A feathery snow began to fall, lasting for several hours at a temperature just below freezing, enough to cause a few mishaps on the road but not enough to stock up on cans of condensed milk or to contemplate mortality. The first snow had come so late in the winter, about that time when you first realize the days are getting lighter and when restlessness for baseball embeds itself in your soul, and like an alcoholic who is drinking mouthwash because it's the only alcohol available, you watch baseball movies and read baseball books and anxiously rock back and forth in your chair as you stare at the fledgling schedules and decide what games you're going to attend during the season. I went to the library that wintry day, walked there while other cars were sliding off the roads, and I looked for something to read to combat the gray boredom I was feeling, when there it was on a shelf under the "Classics" label next to Kerouac and Kipling, a crumbling, well-creased paperback screaming baseball at me. I had George Orwell and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in my hand, but as soon as I saw the title "Shoeless Joe," I ripped it from the shelf and nearly skipped to the checkout.

I remembered it had been a good book when as a ghost in time I had read it, but I hadn't remembered how well-written it was. Or maybe I hadn't been mature enough to recognize good writing (as it wasn't until I was halfway through college when my soul suddenly renewed a childhood interest in writing.) I read the thing in two days, all 224 pages of it, sucked it down in my hunger for the game, for its passions, its nostalgia, its sensual pleasures of joy and respite, and I marveled at how well it sunk into my conscience, pulling up all sorts of memories and feelings and sensations. As I was imagining Ray Kinsella and his perfect family and his perfect farm, the idea of Holden Caulfield suddenly popped into my head, like maybe Ray on his farm was Holden all grown up.

Ok, the words above are Casey O'Hagan's, the main character in my story In the Big Inning. I've decided since it wasn't going where I wanted it to change it to first person, at least for the second half of the book. I'll see how the rewrite goes. I need to develop the characters much more, reduce the amount of dialogue, and write more narrative on the actual baseball games and gambling. Anyway, the words above are also true, because I did find Shoeless Joe and check it out last weekend. I wrote this on Monday, and it is my response to JD's post at Red Reporter, where he says, "This is the point in the winter when I really start missing baseball..." Me, too, JD, me too.

More from Casey:

It was Ray Kinsella's talk of religion that hooked me on the idea, the same talk that Holden spouts off, the same talk, in fact, that all of Salinger's characters are known for, and Salinger himself has practiced a billion different religions. And you know the cabin that Holden talks about, the one where he wants to raise a family someday, away from the rest of the world? That's the farm. That's the cornfield in Iowa. Ray didn't like the city life, didn't like selling insurance and the whole 9-5 boredom of urban living.

But it makes sense since the man who really wrote that book is J.D. Salinger! Seriously, have you ever read W.P. Kinsella's baseball stories? While the stories themselves are good, the writing is average, especially when compared to Salinger. In addition, the language patterns show Shoeless Joe to be closer to Salinger's writing than Kinsella's, even down to the use of commas. And it is true that the name "Richard Kinsella" appears in The Catcher in the Rye, which is Ray's twin brother's name in Shoeless Joe. The more I study this, the more I am convinced that Salinger had some sort of deal with Bill Kinsella so Salinger wouldn't have to be in the spotlight when the book was published.

And how do we know Salinger is a baseball fan? Well, it is called The CATCHER in the Rye, isn't it? (Wink, wink.)

Thoughts on baseball cold and white

There is this white stuff falling from the sky right now, something I vaguely recall seeing before, though I don't feel the animosity I had for it in the past. As long as it continues and gets worse tonight so I don't have to go to work tomorrow, it's fine.

The baseball restlessness has begun. I rented "For Love of the Game" last night in a fit of desire for baseball. There are so many great baseball movies out there, and this is one of the best. It shows how much the game can mean to someone, and it shows why that meaning exists. As Billy Chapel is pitching the game of his life and what ultimately turns out to be the last of his career, memories of playing catch with his father keep popping into his mind. That is the essence of baseball.

The fictional Billy Chapel played for the Detroit Tigers during his entire 19 year career. I wonder when Biggio and Jeter retire if there will ever be another player who stays on one team. As long as the gross economic disparities of the game exist, only teams like the hated Yankees, the anti-Yankees, and the Cubs, perhaps, will be able to afford to keep a player for the duration of his career. This is all hinted at in the movie.

Perhaps those of us who long for the old days romanticize about the past far too much, forgetting that the business of the game has prevented it from ever being perfect. Baseball has a dark history of abuse by greedy owners who treated their players like livestock. But the players got greedy, too. With the state of free agency and arbitration, the greed is spiraling out of control. Mediocre and bad players should not be paid the exorbitant amounts of money they are sucking down faster than a Randy Johnson fastball. Kyle Lohse, for example, should not be earning $4.5 million a year, and Eric Milton is not worth a quarter of his $9 million or whatever it is for 2007. Teams like the Reds shouldn't be forced to stick to a crappy roster just because the salaries of mediocre players have helped to skyrocket the cost of good players, rendering them unaffordable.

This is what we have to dwell on during the offseason when white stuff falls from the sky, a chill wraps itself around our bones, and our longing for the warmth and glory of baseball makes us crazy with restlessness. We have 38 days before we can hear Marty call another Reds game. Until then, I'll pull my fleece over my head, my cap down to my eyes, and dream of baseball as I want to see it - a romantic game filled with passion and nostalgia and a kind of warm perfection that exists only in literature and film and in the hearts of those of us who truly love the game.

Get cold!

Well, winter has disappeared again, replaced by the false warmth of a mid-January spring, with mid-sixties temperatures that resemble game-of-catch weather. I slept with an open window last night, let in some of the fresh, spring training-like air, and I dreamed of real winter, with soaking snow and blustery winds and ice that makes road travel treacherous. I recall with a certain longing the drear and misery that winter brings, because I know that is how it is supposed to be, that something is incredibly wrong with the state of the world for this to be happening. And how will I feel when March rolls around and the weather is just like this, and I haven't had that wintry depression to come out of, and a beautiful spring day is just another day on the speeding calendar? (Ahh, but my handy Reds Desktop Weather tells me winter is on its way this evening, so perhaps I will grab my glove and take advantage of this day after all!)

Baseball, baseball, BASEBALL!

Baseball. Baseball baseball baseball. Baseball. Baseball baseball, baseball baseball baseball. Baseball baseball baseball, baseball Baseball. Baseball, baseball baseball. Baseball baseball baseball, baseball, baseball baseball.

Yep, that's all I have on my mind today as I watch the clock in excited anticipation of my first baseball game of the baseball year, an exhibition game between the Nats and the O's at RFK. I can't wait until my favorite Nats Zimmerman, Johnson, Vidro, Guillen, and Schneider take the field for the first time this year. Patterson is pitching, ensuring a good game. I can nearly smell the hot dogs.

Do I boo Soriano when he comes out onto the field or wait until he misses his first fly ball? Nah, I'm not going to boo him. He's been quiet since he accepted his fate and has been swinging the bat pretty well in this last week of Spring Training. I'll be cheering for him, too.

The weather couldn't be more perfect for a game, so when you leave the office, hop on the Metro to RFK, buy a ticket, and take a deep breath of the fresh spring air, because the best time of year is here. It's baseball!

Baseball on the brain

I have that week-before-Opening-Day feeling right now, the one where everything I see and feel reminds me of baseball. I saw a Schneider National Shipping truck the other day, and of course I thought of the Nationals Brian Schneider. As I walked home from work today, I noticed some lamp posts topped with big bulbs with dirt spots that resembled stitches on a ball. Some cracks in the sidewalk made the shape of home plate; a man whistled something that sounded like Take Me Out to the Ballgame; the hot dog stand smelled like the ballpark. I swear some guy screamed "Cold beer, here!" as I took a breath of spring air, and even strangers I passed on the street look like ballplayers. If I hadn't known the Chief was down in Florida, I would have sworn he was sitting at Caribou Coffee earlier today as I ordered an espresso.

I just watched the Reds beat the Pirates on their way to a 17-11 Spring Training record. Sweeeet. The Reds winning? Stranger things have happened.

One of the strangest things I've come across recently is Oh Say Can You Sing, where Major Leaguers sing popular songs, including Sean Casey singing Toby Keith, Ben Broussard singing With or Without You, and Coco Crisp (snicker) rapping his original song. (I can't help but laugh every time I hear his name.) Of course all of this is for charity, so it's a good cause, but I don't think I'll be putting down the bucks for the CD. I'll save my money for tickets.


Six days to go...

Why I love baseball, reason #4192

Listening to the Giants broadcast of the exhibition against Team USA (praise the internet!), one of the announcers says a player's name, Daren McBain, sounds like a character out of a James Joyce novel (my personal favorite writer,) and then Jon Miller takes it, as he always does, and stretches it into some fun, inning-long nonsense about how you could call a book Portrait of the Baseball Player as a Young Man and proceeds to go on and on like only he can do about what ballplayers are artists, including Brett Tomko, who apparently draws and paints, and Greg Maddux, who does not but was mentioned anyway.

Nothing like sitting out on the porch listening to a baseball game, pretending like it is warmer than it is just because you can't wait for the real warmth to bring on real baseball.

Dreaming of Summer

They're packing their bags to head for Florida. Pitchers and catchers will report to spring training at the end of this week. The first breath of this year's life is about to be taken, a rushing warm feeling of energy and rebirth. I sit restless, staring out an office window at the remnants of a winter's storm, dreaming of hot dogs and cheering and shorts and sunshine. The waiting is always eternal, isn't it? The cold slows time, teasing us with a spot of warmth here and there, only to rip us back into the reality of the season, torturing us with the memories of a Dunn homerun or a Patterson strikeout. I pull my Reds winter cap over my head, step outside of the office, and wish I could turn left instead of right and head down to the Metro to catch a game at RFK.