I'm not the biggest baseball fan, and haven't been an avid watcher since the 80s and early 90s. Similar to pro wrestling and NBA basketball, there was just something more exciting and fun to me about watching it back in the day. I can count on one hand how many times I actually played baseball in my life, but I still admired the sport.I had a Dusty Baker baseball mitt that my Dad bought me when I was about seven years old that I still own . Having a Mitt was something just about every boy was expected to own back in the day. I never used it much, just to play catch with my Dad and Brother occasionally. I was proud to own that mitt however, and it made me feel like I was part of something bigger.
With talk of Baseball coming back soon, I'm all about watching some games as soon as they start up. I am a man without a team though. I do watch Dodger games, because I lived in Southern California until I was about 8 years old. It was my Brother's favorite team, and I was very familiar with the team history and players from a very young age. We had our favorite players like 'El Toro'.. Fernando Valenzuela, Davey Lopes, Dusty Baker, Steve Garvey, and who didn't love watching Tommy Lasorda marching out on the field to argue with the Umps? We loved it when he did that. Here's one of the many shows he put on back in the day..
Those were the days. Tommy was just as entertaining as watching the game sometimes.
While the Dodgers hold a special place in my heart, I followed many teams over the years like the Oakland A's, Anaheim Angels, Baltimore Orioles, Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, and a few others. I credit this to my Brother. He would buy baseball cards and give me any doubles he'd get, which got me into the hobby of baseball card collecting. He taught me what the stats meant on the back of the cards, and I became enthralled with how better some players were than others.
It was because of reading facts and stats about players from their respective cards, that I started following players rather than teams. Eddie Murray from the Baltimore Orioles was my favorite childhood player, and in most recent years David Ortiz aka 'Big Papi' from the Boston Red Sox. In fact, the only Baseball Jersey I currently wear is a Big Papi jersey.
I don't even care who is going to be playing, I'm going to be watching games as soon as baseball starts up. I had every intention of catching a spring training game locally this year, but those plans were obviously derailed. While I can watch games on TV, there's just something so great about watching them live. I'm not sure when we will be able to take in games like that once again, but I'm for sure going to enjoy them all that much more when they do return. Baseball.. one more thing on a list of many, that I sorely miss now that it's not there.