I’m addicted to sports, well, hockey and baseball at any rate. Or I at least used to be addicted to sports. Growing up, my dad watched football. He was a 49ers fan, and these were the heady days of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. I watched a lot of football as a young thing.

 

Today, you’d have to drag me kicking and screaming to spend three hours in front of a bunch of annoying males throwing around a leather covered ball. It is safe to say, I hate football.

 

Basketball doesn’t fare much better. If I say I currently live in Kentucky, one of the first things semi-local people say is, how about UK huh?

 

Basketball. Basketball is even worse than football. I’d rather have myself banned from Starbucks for life than spend any amount of time in front of the tv watching basketball.

 

That leaves Baseball and Hockey. I started watching hockey, and specifically the Philadelphia Flyers, when I was in college. Something about the sheer talent to hit a black disc while flying along ice on two knife thin blades is fascinating. Some people watch for the fights, and okay, yes, that’s a semi-amusing part of hockey. I miss the days of Keith Jones. He could start a fight like no ones business and walk away with a few expletives and a grin. I started my hockey career with John LeClair, Eric Desjardins, Keith Primeu and yes, Eric Lindros. I actually still have my Lindros jersey hanging in my closet, and a signed-by-the-team Flyers jersey. (It’s still in the box it came in over ten years ago waiting to be framed. Someday…)

 

Those were the days.

 

Three years ago, I started following baseball. This was when the Phillies were in the World Series defending their reign. I started with the superstitions, like don’t watch the game like I’m too interested because it’ll jinx it. Always wear the same socks. You get the idea. The next season, I started paying a lot of attention to not only the Phillies, but the Reds since we had just moved to Cincinnati. It was during this time I got inspired to write a story that portrayed the main character as a baseball beat writer. I started following fans and writers on Twitter, I started watching every game.

 

And I found I liked baseball. Religiously so. Dedicatedly so. Enormously so.

 

That year I went to 13 baseball games including the division clinching thrill packing game, watched just about every other game on tv, and my kids knew, you didn’t mess with mom or the tv when baseball was on. I watched both Phillies games and Reds games. I felt the conflict of a lifetime when the playoffs came; it was Reds versus Philies.

 

Then came the off-season. For awhile I tried to keep a baseball themed blog going, The Virgin’s Guide To Baseball, but I never had enough to say about baseball or enough time to keep it going. Maybe someday.

 

My baseball passion dwindled to a trickle once we left Cincinnati and moved to TinyTown. I got busy with life in the country, and kids, and a puppy. When you take the ability to go to a game out of the equation, it gets harder to keep up the dedication. Now that I’m moving back to a baseball city (or at least a city that claims to have a baseball team, I’m still undecided if the Mariners count as a pro baseball team or not…), I’m hoping I’ll get back to my passion for baseball. Or at the very least go to games if  good teams like the Phillies and Reds come to town. It’ll be good to be back in baseball. It’ll be good to be a fan again.

 

I really have missed the crack of the bat, the thud of the ball in the glove, and the ecstatic roar of the fans.

 

I can’t wait to get back into baseball.

 

But don’t worry, I’ll still be a Phillies fan.