At The Old, Local-Team-Participant, Postseason, Free TV Ball Game

Well, the Brewers are deep into the postseason and I'm starting to get jazzed about it. This makes me the kind of fan that most everyone hates, and I'm okay with it.

Baseball has never been my sport.

I should qualify that as regular season, televised baseball, by a team that is just mediocre, has never been my thing.

I am one of those people that won't watch a game on TV unless it is a playoff game. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy a live game, because when I am at the park I am totally into the game. I understand the strategy and do enjoy the energy of a good rally and the struggle of a pitching duel. I am all in for the home team, if only for that three hours a season.

But ever since the Minnesota Twins got into and won the '87 and '91 series, I've been a postseason fan...as long as someone I care about is in it. Namely, the Brewers or Twins.

Part of this is because, for years and years, the Twins were average to outright bad. To see them get into the playoffs was something I thought I'd never see. Then to see them advance and eventually win was nothing short of miraculous. I can remember sitting on pins and needles for every pitch in some of the tighter games against the Tigers and Cardinals back in '87. Somehow the energy of the moment gets to me, no matter what the sport, especially if there is something huge on the line.

This postseason has been broadcast strictly on FS1 or MLB Network, so I haven't seen a game. I am one of those that refuses to pay for cable TV or a streaming service to watch a game. But I am not a sitter. I get antsy after an hour and have trouble watching a slow moving game where a single batter can foul off balls for 5 minutes straight. Does that make me unAmerican? Probably.

 Furthermore this is the case with baseball. My formula for when I will watch televised baseball is simple:


  1. If it is postseason
  2. A team I care about
  3. On local Television
Yesterday, the first locally broadcast game was on and I watched most of it. It pulled me in, just like the Twins did in '87/'91.

As I said at the beginning, I am the kind of fan most baseball fans (and all cable TV folks) hate.And I'm totally okay with that. 

Go Brewers!!!

Blogging off...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

National Poetry Month: Issue 18

In a rush, a poem from Richard Brautigan from,  The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster. A Good-Talking Candle                    by Richard Brautigan I had a good-talking candle last night in my bedroom. I was very tired but I wanted somebody to be with me,    so I lit a candle. and listened to its comfortable voice of light until I was asleep. Blogging off...
Read more

New Chapters

Image
 As many of you know I retired last week after almost 27 years at Waukesha County. It was a bit of a shock to some, in part because I am only 61. Nevertheless I'd given it much thought and talked it through with my family and determined it was time. I wanted to get out while I am healthy and perhaps more specifically just do something different. I am lucky enough to say I've loved my work over the past 37 years. GIS and mapping has been my passion since college and I was fortunate enough to get paid to do something I loved.  I'll be honest, while I looked forward to the date of retirement, I was not looking forward to the celebration. Like my daughter, who is more like me than not, I do not like being in the spotlight. While I've become more comfortable being in front of people in part because of my writing and its related promotion and readings, deep down I'm still an introvert with extrovert flares, as they say. But dreading it as I did, it turned out to be a spec...
Read more

Local Level Need

Image
A week and a half into retirement and I'm here to report that life is good on the other side. I've kept fairly busy so far, in fact when my wife was questioned by friends on "how Jim's retirement is going," she said, "He hasn't sat down." I think I'm still in the manic, must-get-stuff-done mode that happens when people get a week off of work. Gotta cram it all in. Well, I am starting to adjust to the fact that it will all be there tomorrow and next week, and if I don't get to all of it today, it's really okay. It's been a strange adjustment for sure, but one that I am beginning to appreciate more and more.  Before I decided to retire, one of the things I wanted to commit to was a regular stint of volunteer work. When I mentioned it to a friend who works for Frieden's Food Pantry, he suggested I look into helping in one of their four locations. They vary in the number of families that they serve, but they turn over a huge amount o...
Read more