Rediscovering My First Love

Yes, that's right, I'm talking about baseball.

And I'm being perfectly serious. I was raised on baseball. When I was a kid I use to throw the ball around with the neighbourhood kids all the time. I spent many summers outdoors with a baseball glove in hand. We'd play "Running Bases" or "Pitch 'n Hit". I remember that if we were able to hit the tennis ball over the house across the street it would count as a homerun. Hit it off the front part of the roof and it was a triple. Those were some happy times.

Then when I was old enough, I played in Little League. The first team I was on, I played with Vincent Shiao. He was a really good player back then and even cracked the pitching rotation that year. I few years later, I cracked the pitching rotation and pitching was something I looked forward to every week. I remember I pitched the third inning right after our ace (pitchers in little league were only allowed to pitch 2 innings) and then Omar Khan would follow me and pitch the fourth inning. Then in the later years, partly because of my lack of physical ability I started to really suck. I remember in my last year of play, I only got a few hits for the whole season. My fielding was a little suspect too. At that point, I was facing pitchers would could pitch at around 70 mph. That was actually kinda scary. When you've experienced it, you'll know that hitting is one of the toughest skills to learn in sports.

During this time, the Blue Jays won two World Series in a row. I was glued to the TV during those playoff years. I hated those Oakland A's and the Bash Brothers (McGwire & Canseco) with a passion. I vividly remember staying up late for the World Series and watching Atlanta's Otis Nixon try to bunt his way to first, but Joe Carter was there to receive the throw at first. I was jumping up and down with joy mimicking Joe Carter on television.

The following year, I was at a Bar Miztvah for Game 6 of the World Series against the Phillies. People had brought portable TVs and all the people at the Bar Mitzvah's were crowding around these very popular people. When Joe Carter hit that homerun off of Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, I was the first to jump up and cheer. When it was time to leave, I remember the car ride back was full of exuberant cheering and honking with total strangers. Even my dad, who I spent and still spend countless hours talking about sports, honked the horn in celebration.

I remember watching those Blue Jay teams as if it were yesterday. Guys like Jack Morris, Dave Stewart, Juan Guzman, David Cone, Jimmy Key, Duane Ward, John Olerud, Ricky Henderson, Dave Winfield, Paul Moliter, Kelly Gruber (I used to have a glove with his name on it...what crap), Devon White, Pat Borders, Ed Sprague, Joe Carter and my hero, Roberto Alomar. In those days, everyone wanted to be Roberto Alomar. He, with the patented running to right, snaring a grounder, jumping and throwing it in mid-air across his body to first. Everyone tried to imitate that. Baseball was so pure and innocent. I remember going to the Blue Jay parade that year high fiving and cheering on my beloved Blue Jays.

It didn't get any better than winning the World Championship in consecutive years. When you're young, you tend to believe that things like Championships will keep on coming. At the time, I didn't know what the term "loss of innocence" meant. But in retrospect, immediately after the Championship '93 season was my loss of innocence. That season the Jays weren't doing very well even though their lineup was pretty much intact from the previous year. And then the baseball strike happened. What the f*ck was that? A young kid like myself didn't really understand the strike, but what I did know was that a potential Montreal Expo / Blue Jay World Series was not to be. The players wouldn't play baseball because they weren't getting paid enough? F*ck that. Why wouldn't my heroes take the field?

My interest in baseball took a nosedive after that year. And then the final straw. The infamous Roberto Alomar spitting incident. That was an ugly, ugly incident I wish I had never experienced. I say experience, because it hurt. The lesson that all humans are fallible is a tough one to learn. As a youngster, when you have a hero, you are also vulnerable. I had put Alomar upon a pedestal that I had so carefully and dearly constructed, but in an instant, it was utterly and completely destroyed. There was nothing left to look up to; in my eyes, a hero had taken a great fall. Perhaps events like this is why I hesitate to attach myself religiously to a sports team/player. Once you commit, an emotional rollercoaster ride inevitably follows. I suppose part of that hesitation to commitment is rooted in a fear of taking that fall once again.

A few years later, I began to take interest in baseball again when Sosa and McGwire were chasing the homerun record. That was a banner year for baseball, and I warmed up to the sport a little bit. I watched the Arizona-Yankee World series, where the Yankees hit TWO ninth inning homeruns off of BK (Byung-Hyun Kim) to win games 5 and 6. But in the end, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnsono proved to be too much. And then this year, I haven't been able to tear myself away from watching the baseball playoffs. I really liked the Marlins team, and I - unlike most people - wasn't sad that they beat the Cubs. But that's a blog for another day. Right now, I'm too busy watching the World Series :)