Stuff I Like #1: Bazeball . . .

has been good to me.

I grew up in a football obsessed house. I remember, when I was six or seven, being quizzed at family events on matching up pro franchise names with their host cities. Every Saturday in the fall was spent at Virginia Tech college games, long before they were the powerhouse they are today. I have a second cousin who coaches high school ball in Texas (yep, second cousins count, if you're Southern).

I moved to Seattle in 1996, a town that had just experienced its first real taste of baseball success and obsession in 1995. The pro football team was sucking, and I couldn't seem to get into PAC-10 style college football. But the Mariners were beloved, many of the games were on a station I could get without cable, I wanted something other than grad school to think about in the afternoons, and the announcers discussed the game at a level that I could use to learn the basics.

As I became a bigger fan, I went to a game at the old King Dome (not a pretty spot for baseball). I was at opening day of Safeco Field. The picture is the view from the best seats I've ever had, 30 rows directly behind home plate. I'm writing this while the game is on (top of the 6th, a 2-2 tie with Arizona). I've been to games in San Francisco and Anaheim; it's funny how both their stadiums reflect their locations so well.

But the M's were so bad the last couple of years that I became a fair weather fan (the kind we made fun of when I was a kid, like the folks who leave a football game when there's two minutes left so they can beat the traffic). Then I went to a game with some coworkers about a month ago (the seats weren't NEARLY as good as in that picture) and remembered how much I like the rhythm of the game. My football-loving family always dismissed baseball by saying "nothing happens" or "it moves too slow" but if you're paying attention, baseball is a game of strategy, of possibilities. It's not what happens, it's all the things that COULD happen each time the pitcher goes into his wind-up. It's a game of finesse and inches. It can be almost miraculous the way two curved objects (the ball and the bat) meet to create a line drive (think of the physics and geometry of that!).

Yep, I should spend more time with baseball again. I have a good friend and former co-worker who taught me a lot about the game. She needs to be coaxed back to it so we can obsess together again (the doping scandals have driven her away). Here's something I know I like, let's see what I can do with it. Stay tuned.