Wow, I appear to be alive

I haven't posted here in a very long time. I apologize for not being more open about taking a hiatus from sports blogging when it began. I certainly didn't expect it to last for as long as it did.

I'm in Indiana now, which might make my ability to keep up on the Cleveland Indians difficult this season. (And it will certainly make things confusing as the Triple-A team out here is the Indianapolis Indians, who are not, of course, affiliated with the Cleveland team.)

Let's start with my final comment on the Indians' 2007 season, several months late: If you had told me at the beginning of the year all that would happen, I probably would have taken it, but, of course, once you make it to the playoffs, nothing feels good but winning, so it feels like a disappointment at the time. Still, I'm ultimately pleased with the result.

Now, to get back to all this. I stopped blogging, not because I got tired of sports or because I didn't think the Indians could win, or any of a number of things. I stopped blogging because, truth be told, I hate the majority of the sports blogosphere. Not the ultimate idea behind sports blogging, which is that the mainstream sports media doesn't know what they're talking about the majority of the time, which is a statement I have openly agreed with. No, the problem I have is the reason this blog is called "Serious Dismay Sports" in the first place.

I don't understand people making themselves so unhappy over something that matters so little in the long run, and basing their personal worth on their ability to suck it up and continue paying attention. I should understand it, I'm also a sci-fi geek, but I don't. When someone starts hating a show they watch, they're encouraged by others to quit watching. But if you do that with sports, you're a Bad Fan.

I do understand the misogyny and, let's be quite honest, quite often the racism that shows up in the sports media (mainstream and blogosphere). The blogosphere is no different from the mainstream sports media in this regard, on the whole. And maybe this doesn't matter to you if you're a white dude, or if you're a woman or non-white but have bought into some of the racism and sexism in American culture. But if you haven't bought in, you might understand why its neverending presence in something I'm trying to enjoy is upsetting. And I guess here my problem is the failure of the sports blogosphere as a whole to really present that many alternative viewpoints outside of "understands how sabermetrics works." (Disregarding, of course, some of my favorite bloggers.)

And ultimately, I stopped because it stopped being fun and started being work. I was spending too much time on this, hating every minute of it, and getting very little out of it.

I don't know if I'm going to continue this blog starting this spring training and for the 2008 season. I might, since I know the start of the season always gets me so excited I feel I have to blog. But I don't know that I'll be updating daily, or even on a regular basis. I don't know that I'll be interacting so much with the commenters--although I do, you know, post on game threads and the like at Let's Go Tribe.

I know that the blogosphere isn't all bad. I love many of my favorite bloggers as much as I hate my least favorite bloggers. I think this is merely a matter of focusing on the ones I like. That is, maybe, I need to be a little less full of Serious Dismay in 2008. (Which is not to say there won't be some.)


So... How about that Mitchell Report?

Referral Searches!

So, my favorite thing about having a blog is having a tracker on it that gives me my referrals. Or, rather, being able to see the Google searches that bring people to my blog. Here are some of my favorites:

• ryan garko big butt, which I haven't actually made a post about, but dude has a big butt and also I am fond of him. If you are the person who was doing this Google search, seriously, comment! I think we'd make pretty awesome friends!
• potential boyfriend too religious. I'd like to remind this person that we prefer to use the term "righteous" when discussing David Dellucci.
• jeff samardzija openly gay, which I'm pretty sure he's not, y'all. Although I haven't checked his blog recently. Have I missed an important announcement?
• grady sizemore fanfiction, of which there is none here on my blog. But, uh, you know, shoot me an e-mail and I'll hook you up. Um.
  
• white sox fans, which you will find none of here. If you're looking for White Sox fans, I recommend starting at South Side Sox, primarily because that's the only White Sox fansite I know of.
  

There are also a lot of people who are looking for information on the girlfriends of a bunch of dudes on the team. Y'all, I don't know anything about them, or if all of them even currently have girlfriends. I don't really keep up on the gossip. Or... you know, if I do, I don't really blog about it. It seems kind of sketchy.

And, finally, man, I got so much freaking traffic from that rant about Colin Cowherd. The rant said pretty much nothing that people don't already know, and yet it got linked all over the place and brings in the most traffic to the site. That's pretty funny. Apparently hate for ESPN personalities goes a long, long way.

7/02 Milwaukee Brewers at Pittsburgh Pirates

I decided to go see an NL game for two teams I only mildly care about on Monday to break up my drive back to Ohio, primarily because I've heard good things about PNC Park and wanted to check it out.


I'm going to say up front, I found the park a little bit over-rated. This is probably partially the fault of a six-hour drive to get there combined with construction all over the place where the directions I got from the internet told me to go, but I just really wasn't feeling it. There were stairs in weird places, nothing beyond the world of the soft pretzel for me to eat, and the park was clearly designed for someone significantly taller than me, as evidenced by the bar directly in my line of sight from my first-row outfield seats. I'm also not really sure how I feel about the use of the Pirates of the Caribbean music either, but I figure, hey, you got a theme that all the cool kids are into nowadays, might as well milk it, right?

I actually ran into one of their two mascots (the pirate, not the parrot), like, literally, as I was coming out of the bathroom. I am not a big mascot fan, but I do appreciate a mascot that isn't a blatant rip-off of the Phanatic. (I'm talking to you, Slider.)

It was also kind of weird going from the raucous Philadelphia scene to the drudging toward another losing seasonness of Pittsburgh. This is, of course, no real knock on Pirates' fans. It's just weird how the attitudes of different fanbases affects how much I can really enjoy a game. I had the same problem in Philly, actually.

'Cause here's the thing. In Cleveland, you've got two options: if we're down, we can always have a hugely dramatic comeback. And if we're up, we're waiting for the bullpen or defense to blow it. In Philly there was this attitude that when you were down, there was no way you were catching up, and those fans are angry about feeling that way. The Pittsburgh fans? They're just kind of resigned at this point.

Anyway, for all I've heard about the young arms in Pittsburgh, I ended up catching the start of some dude I'd never heard of, (Van Benschoten) who didn't have the best numbers, and looked like he was pulling a Cliff Lee type outing, but ended up coming through with a quality start.

Actually, the game was pretty good through six innings.

And then Kuwata came out of the Pirates' bullpen and gave up 7 runs, and I said, "To heck with this," and committed a cardinal sin by leaving the game early. To be fair, I was worried about traffic and also not falling asleep on the road on the still five hour drive home.

So, yeah, sorry for punking out on you, Pittsburgh.

The park's pretty anyway.

And I ended up getting a Sanchez shirt 'cause the store was all out of Bay ones. And I wept. Or, you know, was kind of disappointed.

Here, have some pictures. Mostly of the Brewers.

6/29 (DH) & 7/01: New York Mets at Philadelphia Phillies

So, I wasn't super-informative about where I was going to be when, apparently, but I drove out from the western side of Ohio to the general Reading, Pennsylvania area on June 28, which took about 11 hours, given the fact that I had to stop to pee about a gajillion times on the way. (Note to future roadtrippers through Pennsylvania, the turnpike is kind of 1) crazy 'spensive, 2) chock full o' "construction." I don't really have a problem with one of these things at a time, but if I'm paying $14.50 to drive on your road for five and a half hours, I better be able to drive 65 mph on pretty much all of it, y'know?)

In Reading, I caught up with my girl Leanne, who is a ginormous Phillies fan. (The ginormousness being her fanitude, not her body shape. She is actually rather wee, which is mostly notable because I dig hanging out with people who make me feel less short.) Leanne's AL team in the '90s was the Cleveland Indians, which is, of course, why we are friends, in spite of the fact that I really never paid attention to those teams, because that was when I was in junior high and high school and was mostly into, like, wearing black lipstick and listening to The Cure and occasionally going to minor league hockey games. Um.


Anyway, some of Leanne's buds canceled on her, so I got hooked up with tickets to both ends of the day/night Phillies/Mets double-header at Citizens Bank Park last Friday. I'd never been to Citizens Bank Park, and that last time I was in Philly it was part of a fat-camp daytrip when I was, like, 12. (You think I'm kidding?) And the last time I actually, like, saw the Phillies play a game in person was, like, what? 1993? Back before John Kruk had a job on ESPN anyway.

We got up crazy early (for me, anyway), and drove down to the train station and headed into Philly with our many shirts and our sign for Cole Hamels for the night game. I now understand the "Cole Hamels can make SEPTA run on time" joke from Cole Hamels Facts. I mean, not that any other public transportation with which I am moderately familiar is particularly punctual, but SEPTA was notably bad, although we did manage to catch the express to the sports complex once we were in Philly most of the time.

I found Citizens Bank Park a little bit too... much. I don't know. There was a lot of stuff going on. It was a little carnival-y. Also, upper decks in the outfield is, like, a lot of seats. I don't know. This is probably just Jacob's Field being a little more unassuming than the general hugeness of Citizens Bank Park.

Before the first game, we went down and did the whole autograph thing. J.A. Happ was signing really early, and Leanne kind of freaked out because she recognized the dude from all the Reading Phillies games she's gone to. So they had this whole conversation, which was primarily made up of Mr. Happ being all smiles about getting called up, if just for a spot start on Saturday (and for which he wasn't officially called up until they sent Geary down after the double-header, but whatever). Dudes on their first trip to the Big Leagues are pretty much the cutest.

Then Jamie freakin' Moyer came out, and by that point we'd been doing some wandering about and Leanne grabbed my hand and we ran over to the Phillies' side of the park again so she could get her boy's autograph, since she has a crush on every boy... over 40.

Let me take a moment to talk about how pretty much awesome Jamie Moyer was with the local fans. He's apparently a PA guy and came out for about 20-30 minutes before every single game we were at to sign for people. Dude is pretty much awesome with the Philly fans. I tip the cap I am not currently wearing to you, Mr. Moyer.

Eventually we made it up to our seats, which were behind a really cute dude who was scoring the game. At first we thought he was pretty quiet and nice, but then some Mets fan spilled beer on his scorebook, and Mr. Phillies Fan's friends showed up, and by the eighth inning we had a dude who was perfectly willing to heckle a four-year old sitting in front of us. It was kind of amazing, in a horrific and also a little bit awesome kind of way.

Like, you know how you have that friend in your group who's a total jerk to everyone in the group, but he's also a total jerk to everyone outside of your group, too? And he's really funny when he does it, in that completely unapologetic about being an asshole kind of way? So you can't really bring yourself to stop being friends with him because then you'll miss all the hilarity? That was this guy. We almost tried to hook him up with our extra ticket for the night game because we wanted to keep him around, but were too intimidated. Also, a little bit of hilarious asshole sometimes goes a long way, and flipping off four-year olds is really only funny once per week.

So, uh. The Phillies lost that game, which sort of sucked, but I was mostly only rooting for them because, you know, guest!

We got shuffled out of the park in between the games, so we wandered over to the Holiday Inn next door to suck up air conditioning and change our shirts. And buy more waters at a slightly less inflated price than they charge actually in the ball park.

The second game of the day we ended up in the last row of the 300 level in right field, which was pretty sweet. We ended up hanging up our Cole Hamels sign on the fence behind us.

I admit, once it became obvious that 1) Cole Hamels did not bring his A Game to the game, and 2) The Phillies apparently don't believe in patience at the plate, I kind of got distracted by the bickering between Mets and Phillies fans around me. There were some Mets fans in front of us, one of whom kept trying to flirt with every female Phillies fan he could find. And there were a lot of them in our general area. Mr. Mets fan did not flirt with me, but I introduced myself as "an Indians fan in disguise," when he was all upons Leanne, so I mostly got brushed off. Clearly the dude was all about ladies who kind of hate him. Which I mean, whatever, dude. Some people are into skinny blonde girls, some people are into ladies who wear a lot of leather, some people are into David Wright, whatever gets you going, I guess. And he wasn't handsy or anything, just into bantering with ladies who kind of hate his favorite team. I guess I'm okay with that, although I might not be okay with that if, like, you know, some White Sox fan came to the Jake and did that to me.

Across the aisle from us there was the Worst Phillies Fan Ever, who kept touching and clapping at and generally being a dick to the Mets fan sitting in front of him. There may have been a fight.

With an usher.

I don't know. It was a little crazy. There were a lot of people who had been drinking since the start of the day game, I think.

Leanne, who is very pro-being-a-dick-to-Mets-fans-when-they're-in-your-house actually went up and apologized to the Mets fans, and they were kind of, you know, "hey, it's cool. We know you're not all like that." So that was actually a little heartwarming.

The train out of Fern Rock was crazy late getting into the station, and we ended up not getting home until about 1:30 in the morning, so we did not go to a Reading Phillies game the next day, but instead we hung out in our "shirts we don't leave the house in" (That is, her Glavine Mets shirt and my Santana Twins shirt), and watched the Phillies game and then the Marlins game on TV and ate crackers and watched all the back-issues of Teen Girl Squad.

Sunday (July 1), we headed back into Philly for the next game, for which we had seats in the last row of the 400 level, which was a little bit vertigo-inducing, I admit. The atmosphere at this game was much pleasanter than the first two, and random people gave us soft pretzels and mustard. Leanne also totally abandoned me near Jose Mesa when we were down along the baselines autograph fishing again, so she could run over and see who was signing over by the Mets dugout, since none of the Mets had signed at either game we attended.


By which I mean she got Tom Glavine's autograph and we jumped around and screamed like morons about it for a couple seconds. Uh. As you do. I don't know. Sometimes you just get crushes on dudes over 40. (I still love you, Roger O'Donnell!)

Leanne is totally going to kill me over me publicizing her thing for Glavine.

Anyway, we spent most of the game making lame Teen Girl Squad-inspired jokes about the game ("A-Row'd!" being my favorite, but "CHILDREN!" being the most often stated because there were many cute children in our surrounding area.), and quoting The Dugout at each other, and making lots of jokes about our made-up world about A Very Wee David Wright and his Fondness for Other People and Sometimes Food.

In the realm of the Vegan Baseball Roadtrip, I discovered during the night game that on the Pavilion (200) Level on the right-field side the South Philadelphia Market has vegan gardenburgers. The water ice from Philadelphia Water Ice is also dairy-free. Beyond that, you're stuck with your standard ball-game fare (that is: soft pretzels, and if you're living dangerously, french fries).

We didn't try to do any away-from-the-ballpark eating on our treks due to time constraints and our autograph/photograph obsessions, but there's really not a lot directly near the ballpark anyway, since it's out in this ginormous sports complex that's mostly surrounded by several miles of parking lot. I am only kind of kidding.

You can check out the full photo album from the games here.

My report from PNC Park coming soon.

Hopefully.

Fannish Envy

I know a lot of people say that you don't choose your team, you're either raised with it, or it chooses you. Sports allegiances are something like family in that way, I suppose. I'm not sure I fully buy into that idea, since I am from stock that has no traditional family team (due to a lot of moving around and long periods of apathy), but I did feel more chosen by the Indians than like I chose them.

Honestly, I am loathe to mention this in public, but the other day, my Best Friend (and Other Half, since we are The Same Person) , was going through her old LiveJournal entries and found a comment thread where I actually said, "Maybe we should follow the White Sox," back in that fateful 2005 season. I felt dirty, but I guess that just goes to show that you don't really choose.

Still, in between my first rash of baseball love and the current incarnation, I spent a lot of time in traditional media fandoms. You know, those science fiction/comic book/anime/etc. fandoms where people get together and write fan fiction. And one thing I learned in that time is that I am not mono-fannish. I see some people I know looking at something shiny, and I go, "ooh! Shiny!" and then I go watch the show or whatever, and fall a little bit in love.

In baseball, I can't really do that. Part of baseball fandom is its need for monofannishness. I can maybe say, "Boy, Player X is cute," or "Gee, Player Y is a very good baseball player," but I cannot say, "I think I'm quitting and going to go root for Team Z now instead." In media fandoms, switching fandoms didn't mean you wanted the original fandom you left to do poorly, just that you were interested in something else. In baseball fandom, any lack of support for your team is, in fact, stright up lack of support. Wanting one team to win is inevitably wanting another team to lose.

Really, though, my point with this post is this: Sometimes I find myself looking at the fans of other teams and saying to myself, "Boy, I wish I liked their team. They look like they're having a lot of fun." And this is a stupid way to feel, right now in particular, since the Indians are in first, and yet, I have that roving eye.

I was going to blame this entire thing on Cleveland, and the general pessimism of the sports fans there, but I'm not sure that's true.

The further I dig into a fandom, the more familiar with it I become, the more I get dragged down by dissatisfaction, by losing that little bit of Fannish Honeymoon I had at the beginning, when the fandom was neat and the people were neat, and I loved everything. Even if I did go root for that other team (which I have no intention of actually doing), I would eventually get just as depressed with that fanbase, and that team's failings.

It's just, sometimes I look at the Twins blogosphere, and I think, "Gee. They have awfully nice things."

And then I have to remind myself, "Sure, Ang. But we have Mistake By The Lake, and Travis Hafner, and the spammiest, bestest game posts ever at Let's Go Tribe."

And then I say, "Oh, yeah," and maybe go buy myself a Fanta.

Or possibly take a nap.


... and in conclusion, A.J. Pierzynski is a douchebag.

Farewell to Batgirl

I've just learned that Batgirl is retiring from blogging to take care of her infant son. Although I am not a Twins fan, and have never been terribly vocal at her blog (I think I've commented maybe three times), I've been reading it for some time now, and have found it one of the most regularly readable sports blog on the 'net. It was, in fact, full of sass and character and charm. I can only hope to one day have a blog as cool as hers. (Although, you know, probably not, since she is much more capable of relentless optimism than I am. Also she's, y'know. Funnier.)

batgirl's departure is definitely making me think a little more about what I want to do with this blog, about the things that I liked about Batgirl's blog that I don't do. (And the things I do that she didn't, which is not me calling her out, it's me pointing out a difference in our perspectives.)

I don't know. I like to think about unpleasant topics. I probably like to be pissed off about stuff. I'm one of those people who comments over at Let's Go Tribe, full of despair every time the Indians get behind in a game. I never said I was going to be positive; it's right there in my blog title that I'm not.

And yet.

And yet.

There's something about a blog like Batgirl's that I really, truly respected, in this age of blogs full of complaining and over-analysis of every little thing. Those things are great, and fun, and I love learning more about what various dude's stats really say about them. But, as a commenter on batgirl said, her blog was always reminding us that this game is a game. That it's supposed to be fun.

I don't want to say that I'm not going to tackle important topics. I need to talk about Chief Wahoo one of these days. I need to talk about domestic violence some day. I have a backlog of posts about racism and the phrasing of apologies that are no longer relevant to the news, but are still relevant in feeling that I'd like to eventually post. And yet, there's a part of me that thinks: maybe I should post more about my thoughts on why I think Ryan Garko is hysterically funny for no good reason. Or I should post more Photoshop Theatre. Or I should post more about the stupid nicknames me and my BFF give various baseball players¹.

And can I do both of those things on the same blog? I'd like to, but will I scare away the people who like the funny with my angry? Will I strike the people who like my angry with my silly? I don't know. But maybe I should try to do both. Or maybe a little more of the silly, with occasional breaks for angry.

My point here is: Batgirl, good luck with the BabyDash, and I'mma miss you.


¹ Example! We often refer to Cliff Lee as The Sleepy Kitten. I'm not terribly sure where it came from, possibly from some post-pitching interview he gave on ESPN where he looked like he really needed a nap, but there you go. Last night I'd gather he was a Sleepy, Catnipped, Tangled in Yarn Kitten. That's the best explanation I have for his inability to cover first, anyway.

18 May 2007: Cincinnati at Cleveland

I uploaded some photos I took at yesterday's Reds/Indians game over at my Flickr. I don't consider myself a photographer, and conditions & my camera were not the best, so a lot of the photos are blurry. But, you know, if you want to check them out, check them out.

Anyway, the batting practice and the game were pretty exciting, as was being in Cleveland when the city got news that the Cavs were going to the Eastern Conference Finals.

I've discovered that I can do a game all in one day, instead of having to crash at a hotel, so I'll probably go to more games this year than I did last year, although it's pretty expensive, what with the parking, gas, and toll roads. So I'll probably get less awesome seats next time.

This post was supposed to be about Shin-Soo Choo

So, I was going to just write up a short thing about Shin-Soo Choo getting called up to the big club now that Andy Marte's getting sent to the disabled list, but then I got myself distracted by thinking about calling him "Big League Choo," as he's often referred to by Let's Go Tribe commenters, who love giving dudes goofy nicknames. Because, seriously, I had a flashback to sitting in the back seat of the car on a roadtrip up to Canada, my step-brother and I stuffing as much Big League Chew gum into our mouths as we possibly could, because we were gross little kids.

From there, my mind skipped to being seven years old and playing incredibly half-assed baseball in our backyard with my step-brother and his then-best-friend Erik, in between playing baseball on our Nintendo, of course. This was back when I used to bat lefty and had a modicum of hand-eye coordination. We took turns as batter, pitcher, and catcher, and had to climb over the fence to fetch our one baseball a lot. I, of course, had a big crush on Erik, who was about four years older than me. By the time I was in junior high, Erik was in juvie, and my step-brother and I were fans who lost our interest during the 1994 strike. Steve went to football (he was the deviant University of Michigan fan in the family), and I went to writing stories about vampires in my notebook during math class.

And then, I wanted to post about me, and the first time I fell in love with baseball, because these things get a little confusing. I haven't been a fan of the same team for my whole life like a lot of people. Part of this is because of where I live. There's this part of Ohio, west-central to northwest, where there's this strange intersection of about four teams' fanbases. Anyone on the street could be a Reds fan, or an Indians fan, or a Cubs fan, or a Tigers fan. We're used to living with each other and not stabbing each other in the eyes. It's not like living in an area like Chicago where the White Sox fans and the Cubs fans seem to actively hate each other. It's not like the Pacific Northwest, where your local team is the Mariners, and that's who you get. You kind of get an option.

I'm the child of two Cubs fans, kids who grew up in northern Indiana, where that's who you root for. My mom is from Oakland originally, and her parents are from St. Louis, so the Athletics are her American League team, and she's kind of soft on the Cardinals. My dad likes to fit in where ever he moves (and he moves around a lot, thanks to his job), and has a habit of becoming a fan of who ever is local in addition to his fondness for his Cubbies. He's picked up loves for the Braves, and then the Reds, and then the Red Sox, and now he's got a local minor league team in Indianapolis, so he's all over that. So I'm from stock that has a certain malleableness to its baseball fannishness.

My dad moved to Cincinnati in the winter of 1989, and finally having the option to take me to some baseball games in 1990, he did. I developed a crush on Chris Sabo, whose goggles made me like him. I made stupid Berman-isms about Joe Oliver. I regularly point out that my fondness for crazy sports outbursts comes from being a Reds fan when they had Marge Schott and Lou Piniella and the Nasty Boys. Sometimes, I get upset that Eric Wedge and his Indians don't engage in crazy antics enough. If Mark Cuban ends up buying the Cubs, I'll probably pee myself.
It was a freaking magical year, and the last time I've ever been lucky for a team. (I was secretly hoping when I fell head over heels for the Indians in 2005 it'd be the same story, but alas, it was not to be.) I got into a fistfight with my grade school boyfriend over the World Series (he really liked Oakland, I guess), and my babysitter bet her friends that the Reds would win the World Series, and let me stay up late to watch Game 4.

We danced around on the couch.

I stayed a Reds fan after that, and was truly convinced that I would grow up and damn you, gender inequality, maybe get a chance to play A-ball someday. My dad helpfully pointed out that I had very little athletic ability that did not involve having decent reflexes and being able to be choreographed. (Then again, on the plus side, equitable answer, Dad! Thanks for pointing out my failures on the actual level of, you know, my abilities and not my genitalia!)

And then the strike happened and everyone was like, "screw baseball!" and my step-mother got pregnant, and then my dad moved to Rhode Island. We tried to go to a Red Sox game in 1995, but it just wasn't the same.

So I pretty much forgot about baseball except to watch the playoffs a couple times, mostly because my mom wanted to see how the Indians did in 1997, and then an online friend of mine was a big Yankees fan, so I bandwagoned for her during the playoffs for a couple years. I denied the existence of the Diamondbacks when they won and the entire SUNY-Binghamton campus tried not to explode in outrage.

I'm not sure how I fell in love with the Indians. I started listening to the radio broadcasts on the way home from my summer classes in 2005, which let out around 7:00 pm that year. I rooted against the Indians for two straight weeks, for no real reason. And then I started to fall. Coco Crisp was a silly name! Jhonny Peralta sounded pretty cool! Grady Sizemore stole home! Travis Hafner was... well, until he took a fastball to the head...

And then I turned on the television and basically died because some of those kids were so young. Grady Sizemore and Jhonny Peralta are pretty much my peers. Which makes watching baseball a little weird, and yet, enjoyable.

We all know how 2005 ended up (depressing and choke-tastic), but I was sold. I was so sold.

The fondness is a little different this time. For example, I no longer know who the first and third base coaches are for my favorite baseball team, and I certainly don't make collages about them. No one will go outside and play half-assed baseball with me while biding time before they get themselves sent to juvie. And I don't think I'm going to grow up and play baseball anymore (mostly because I'm already grown up. And because now I know that people are jerks). It feels different being a fan now. The game's so different, and I didn't worry about whether or not my favorite players were juicing (more on that in the future!), but I'm glad I found it again.

And thanks to Shin-Soo Choo, whose nickname made me think about bad chewing gum that made kids emulate dipping, which made me think of being a gross seven year old.

Actually, thanks to Shin-Soo Choo for getting called back up because if Ben Broussard had to get traded for someone, I'm glad it's somebody I like just as irrationally. And he brings great joy to one of the ladies who works as an usher in the lower level, and her raucous cheering brought great joy to me the last (technically also the first!) Indians game I attended.

So rock on with your bad self, Choo. You made me get all pensive and nostalgic in my sports blog. And I'm hoping that's okay.