America's Favorite Pastime

I have been a baseball fan my entire life. For as long as I can remember I have enjoyed watching and playing the game.

I remember my parents taking me to my first professional baseball game when I was young. Then a few years later I went with my then boyfriend’s family. It was a blast. I love the atmosphere of a baseball game. I love the sights, the smells, and the sounds.

It was no surprise that I married a baseball fan. My husband played baseball in high school and in college. I noticed how much he loved the game. I found it endearing how he could care for a sport so much.

I started noticing things about baseball I had never noticed before. All of my life I had just watched baseball; outs, runs, innings and so on. I never knew or even noticed the statistics and strategies. Batting averages, RBIs, hits, wins, losses, saves; all of these strategic decisions were things I was completely unaware of. I had always just watched the game. To my surprise, the batter does not just walk up to home plate and start swinging away. He has a strategy. Does he need a base hit? Does he need to move a runner around the bases? Is he so good that the pitcher will intentionally walk him?

My husband spent hours trying to explain away my baseball ignorance. He finally gave up. I eventually read Buzz Bissinger’s book 3 Nights in August to help me understand the game better. It did help. Baseball is numbers, numbers, and more numbers.

I eventually looked forward to the end of baseball season when “summer guy” would go away and “winter guy” would emerge. When my husband and I watched the movie Fever Pitch (starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore), I found myself relating to it a little too much. Thus the use of the terms “summer guy” and “winter guy.”

“Summer guy” is baseball obsessed guy. This is when I can say anything and do anything and my husband will not notice. He won’t listen when I talk. He won’t pay attention to what I do. If I need to talk to him, I had better not do it during a baseball game; he will not be listening. If he does pretend to listen, he will keep his eyes on the T.V.

“Winter guy” is when baseball season is finally over. My husband will pay more attention to his real life outside of baseball. He will strategically plan for spring training when “summer guy” will reemerge.

Silly me I thought, much like the female character in the movie Fever Pitch, that my husband’s obsession for baseball would eventually be redirected. Boy I was I wrong. He is now planning how our future children will enjoy baseball. He wants a room in our house completely dedicated to baseball and his favorite team.

Instead of trying to understand the game to its extent, I have gone back to just watching and enjoying. I ignore my husband when he complains about numbers and strategies. I want it to be like it used to be; when I just enjoyed baseball.

I will continue to anxiously await the return of “winter guy.”