Love & Other Drugs

Today is the four-month anniversary of the 2010 World Series. In this time of reflection I have discovered something.

In the past I have described baseball as the love of my life, my favorite child, and my red letter day. It has taken another identity. Baseball is my Zoloft, my Ritalin, and my Viagra. That is, to say, baseball uplifts me, it calms me, and boy does it excite me.

Baseball uplifts me. When Sportscenter shows me clips from the Cactus League or the Grapefruit League my eyes light up, I get a skip in my step. It's the first time baseball has called in nearly 4 months...do I answer? My heart is beating fast and when I finally decide to pick up, it's too late. Baseball goes straight to voicemail. Baseball always leaves a message, never leaves me hanging. The date has been set: April 1st. Baseball will take me out, and so it begins. The wear and tear of everyday life is supplemented by the faint sound of swinging strikes and crushing homers, by the ringing of my phone as baseball calls, the ding of the message, the uplifting call I've been waiting for for a long time.

Baseball calms me, it gives me a schedule. You can always depend on baseball, baseball is always there for you. Baseball doesn’t forget to call. Baseball is there when he tells you he will be. If he promises to take you out for a ballpark frank and the national anthem at 2 pm on Wednesday, he’ll be there. He’ll be there with peanuts and cracker jacks. Every game he asks: “hey hey baby, Oooo ahhh, I wanna know-o-o-o if you’ll be my girl” and the answer is always the same: Yes. While his incessant wooing might annoy some, it calms me. It’s expected. It’s comfortable. Baseball promises me 162 dates a year, and he delievers. Raining? We’ll reschedule. Plane delayed? Let’s find another time that works. If the first 162 dates go well, we’ll have some more. If they continue to go well… let’s throw a parade. Baseball calms me, it structures my days, my weeks, my years.

Baseball excites me. Seeing outfielders dive for pop flys and first basemen stretch for the out. While you can always count on baseball to be there for you, you never know what he will bring. One day he might grace you with the perfect date, letting the pitcher see 27 men walk to the plate, and 27 walk away. Maybe he’ll bring you a bouquet of roses, caught just above the outfield wall. How about some chocolates, diving into home headfirst? Maybe he’ll write you a poem, peppered with obsenities screamed by managers. Baseball is always exciting, he’s never boring. And he always brings gifts...

Baseball is my all-in-one pill.

Then, the clouds opened up and God said, "I hate you Alfalfa"

The last time I wrote, I spoke of love, the kind of love that can happen between a small-town girl and a big league team. I’m going to pull a 180 and go in a different direction. There are some things that I hate. I used to say that you can’t hate something unless at one point you cared about it. I was naïve, I was young, I was wrong. I hate the San Francisco Giants. I hate that they pretend they are a team of mis-fits. Last time I checked “mis-fits” don’t make millions of dollars a year. Last I checked a team of “mis-fits” doesn’t have a rookie of the year candidate, and a 2-year Cy Young Award winner. In case you forgot, the Giants won their division, they won MY division, no group of rejects has ever done that in my recollection. And “mis-fits” don’t win the World Series.

I hate bandwagon fans. Being a sports fan means dealing with the pain and the losses, and never losing faith. This past weekend the Buffs, the Broncos, and the Steelers lost. So what do I do come Monday? I become a fan of the Oregon Ducks, the New England Patriots, and the Baltimore Ravens. Oh, and also, those San Francisco Giants are sure looking good these days. WRONG. My emotional well-being is connected to my teams. Is this ridiculous? Of course it is. But like any boyfriend, I will not dump them for the newer model simply because they were a loser that weekend (at least I think that is how those bf/gf relationships work). If you jump on the bandwagon you sure as heck better hold on, because once you’re on, there should be no letting go. If you decide to be a Giants fan tomorrow, you better be one for the rest of your life. When they win 80 games next year and don’t get over .500, you better be wearing that black and orange, because that is what fans do. They hold on, they tighten their grip, and they buckle their seatbelt when they open the door of the bandwagon. Let this be a warning to all of those considering catching the bandwagon.

I hate losing. Oh boy do I hate losing. It’s like they don’t even care how I feel. My teams, my loves, my boys: they just keep losing. I will not dump them, I will not let go, but I hate losing. There are many types of losses. Recently, my teams have been, how do I put this nicely, been getting completely and utterly dominated. The sucker-punch phase is over, its just a pure beating now. (A sucker-punch loss is the one where you have a chance, there is an opportunity to win, so you raise your hands above your head in jubilation….and bam, a punch right to the stomach, you bend over in pain, it hurts, you are pretty sure you can’t breathe. That’s what a sucker-punch loss feels like.) It’s to that point where my body is so calloused from the beatings that they almost stop hurting, I’ve lost all emotional affect. But I still hate losing and I hope I never see the day when the losses completely stop causing pain (ask any Cubs fan how that feels). So there you go, I hate the Giants, I hate bandwagon fans, and I hate losing. I also hate cilantro, and I hate cats, but I'll save that rant for another day.

Don’t hate me ‘cause you ain’t me.

Your Love Is My Drug

I have never been in a “real” serious relationship, nor do I feel I ever need to be in one. Because I know love. And while some may say I tell myself this to rationalize my un-date-ability I think it adds to my charm. And we all know I am freaking charming. But let me lay it out, nice and simple, for you: Sports are the love of my life. And I have felt their love for a long time. Men make you laugh and cry, give you moments of intense euphoria and supreme disappointment. And guess what? So do sports, but there is always another game looming in the distance to help remedy the heartache the previous one has dealt you. Some might say…There is always another fish in the sea.

Call me a cynic, but I think that loving someone means being able to love them more than they can ever make you hate them. And it’s just at the moment when I begin hating sports that they sweep me off my feet again. The moment when you enter the bottom of 9th inning down 9-3, disappointed and upset, when suddenly the Colorado Rockies spurn a comeback, raking in 9 runs in a single inning, and I fall in love all over again. It’s September and you’re in the hunt, but they lose. And again, they lose, and maybe even again, and why not throw a fourth loss in for good measure. It’s this moment when I want so bad to break-up with the Rockies, break up with sports. Tell them not to call me, tell them I can’t believe they would do this to me. Its not you its me. But I hold on. Because that’s what love is all about, holding on when you want to let go forever.

Sports deal you hard blows and make you check your ego at the door (for example, hypothetically, of course, how much can one really cheer for a team that’s third, or is it fourth (?) string quarterback, Charlie Batch, will be playing because qb2 and qb3 decided to get hurt, while qb1 is serving a 4 game suspension for some disgustingly unlawful behavior). But you cheer anyway, because you’re in love. The flaws are masked behind the little quirks you find, like how they wear their socks (Dexter Fowler), or how right when you try and let go, they sweep you off your feet. Because its just that, sports will always be there when you need them.

All you need is love.