John Miller, player/coach of the Brussels Kangaroos and a reporter for a major American newspaper, is back chronicling his team’s 2009 season in his weekly column that will appear every Monday on mister-baseball.com.
A new kind of day is here. It’s cold, often wet, and comes after a full night of sleep. Gone is the digital temptation cabled across the Ocean, images of weary grown men performing the game they play best, running their tanks empty on adrenaline and gut and amphetaminated coffee.
(The most revealing player quote of the post-season to me was Cole Hamels’s expressing his desire that the season be over with. Duh. I love baseball. We all love baseball. But every day for 7 months? 212 total games?)
Ok, I won’t feel sorry for Cole.
Lifting our bodies and brains from slumber in the European night, we saw a great Yankee run, and once again, I must admire the franchise I hate. At least parts of them. I silently cheered for one-pitch assassin Mariano Rivera and quiet knight in armor Jorge Posada. In the same quiet of my heart, I wanted A-Rod to strike out on three pitches. Every time, please.
But God is dead, apparently, and we are left with winter and World Champion Yankees.
Here is the new day. I don’t go to the office with blurry eyes, daydreaming about Chase Utley’s magnificent clutch hitting or Johnny Damon’s basepath genius. No more indulging in the glories of my own pretend managerial genius, thinking about who the Twins or Angels or Phils need to throw to command the Bomber lineup.
No more sore arms or sore knees after the weekend wars, or wondering what birds the Kangaroos have to sacrifice for a winning first-division season.
These will be days without baseball, over a hundred of ’em, until pitchers and catchers report.
Me, I’ll be ok. There is family to see, and a wife to spend more time with, and a basketball game or two.
Something has changed, though. My knees were sore at the end of this year. I struggled even more than usual with hitting. I have passed the stage where baseball is worth pain and sacrifice and frustration.
I love baseball, and have spent the past 10 summers playing, almost all in the first division, with all-day baseball Saturday and Sunday, from April to October.
I have had the luck and joy to play in hundreds of ballgames, with wood bats and decent umpires and good teammates, against fair competition, including former pros, who I have caught and got hits off of.
I will keep playing, but I don’t want the first division anymore. I want to play for fun, at a level where I can compete without too much practice, and hit .300 again, and miss games without feeling guilty, and coach kids on the side.
These are the days without writing this column. Once again, the experience has been a solid double in the gap. Thanks to all my fellow European baseball fans for all the emails and support.
I’ll be blogging the European Baseball Coaches Convention in Brussels in a few weeks. (If you’re not attending, you should.) But as far as this space is concerned, wait ’til next year!
Final feedback? Email oldworldpastime@gmail.com