Baseball and All Its Beauty

There has always been a saying in baseball, "its a long season". This quote has so much depth and meaning that it basically defines the ups, downs and ins and outs of baseball as a sport. Every season, fans and media alike get super excited about spring training and the start of another year of America's past time. Sports writers get together and cover all the news they can in March and April in Arizona, Florida and Las Vegas as each Major League baseball team plays meaningless spring training games, gearing up for the long, hot summer days approaching. No one realizes that we are all about to embark on journey that lasts "a long time". And we, as fans, eat it all up. We debate and squabble about whose team is going to win it's division and which players look skinnier and more fit. Then the day finally comes, peanut bags start flying through the air, beer is getting sold at sky rocketing prices, hot dogs spin on metal rollers cooking slow and squirting beef juices everywhere. And as you enter these stadiums, these shrines to one of the greatest games ever, the smell of food and brew, dirt and grass, pine tar and leather fill the atmosphere letting everyone know "the long season" has begun.
162 games, no other sport has so many in it's season. The reason baseball has so many games, I believe, is so that everyone has a fighting chance. Some teams begin the season, the first 30-40 games playing mediocre or below average baseball, staying at the bottom of their divisions and making their fans think, "man this is going to be a long season". But, as the All-Star break nears, things begin to change. Teams who hadn't shown any life yet, start to come alive and win same games. These teams try and put together a streak that will give them some momentum before they stop for about ten days. These teams do this and begin the second half of the season with a new perspective and a new feeling of empowerment. The "long" baseball season allows teams to go on hot streaks and cold streaks ans still be able to have a chance at the post season. We saw it last year with the Colorado Rockies and I see it this year with my favorite team, the NY Mets. The Mets are one of those clubs this year, who didn't have an identity the first half of the season, who were hovering around third and fourth place in their division. But they did something a lot of teams have done it the past and that's show resilience. They went through a manager change and a face lift of sorts. The Mets began to show their fans and the media in NY that they weren't going to collapse again like they did last year. But that they were going to do just the opposite. They were going to rise from the dead and make a run for the postseason. Baseball gave the Mets a chance to try again, because of "the long season", the players on the Mets started to come through with big hits and pitch deeper into games. They moved up in the National League Eastern division, beating the teams ahead of them and displaying a trait that represents baseball to its fullest, endurance. Being able to endure "the long season" and come out on top is a difficult task. Other sports, like football for instance, don't have any room in it's season for error. If a team begins 0-3, that hole they have dug for themselves goes too deep most of the time to climb out. There is no luxury in football like there is in baseball, where a team can lose a lot and the win a lot and still be able to compete for the top spot in their division.
Baseball is a fans sport, a sports writers sport, a family sport and a fun, exciting and "long lasting" sport. To know that 6 out of the 7 days of the week there is a baseball game going on that you can watch or attend is priceless. There is nothing better then coming home and watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN every night, hearing the opening music and seeing John Kruk, Tim Kurkjian, Karl Ravech and Peter Gammonss sit there, ready to tell you everything they know about the day in baseball. I feel like a little kid, glued to the Saturday morning cartoons, when I watch Baseball Highlights. Baseball gives you that feeling, it gives you that opportunity to be young and anxious about something. Every time I walk into a baseball stadium, I want to grab my father's hand again and walk out into the vastness of the field and the stands. I want to eat three hot dogs right away, with mustard and sauerkraut and I want to scream at the opposing team, telling them that they are not that good, even if they are. I enjoy basking in the beauty of the sport and all its statistics and all its rules. I get goosebumps just thinking about the postseason and those playoff games where the big slugger comes up in the ninth inning with the game on the line. If I had my way, I would extend the season to 250 games so that I could watch baseball two thirds of the year. I would have two breaks, the All Star Break and the Winter Break and then play the rest of the season at dome stadiums. That last part is crazy and is inconceivable, but it just shows you how much I love the game and that it can never be "too long".