We’re talking baseball…

How I became a fan again

A year or so ago, while flipping through Netflix looking for something to watch, I stumbled upon Ken Burns ‘Baseball’ - an epic documentary detailing the game from it’s humble inception until the early 2000s.

I was, of course, aware that the documentary existed, but I hadn’t seen it - mainly because I hadn’t followed baseball in 25 years or so. But after watching all 10 episodes over the course of a week or two, I found that my interest was rekindled.

That said, it occurs to me that some of my favorite movies are about baseball. Bull Durham (anything that travels that far ought have a damned stewardess on it), The Natural, and a heart achingly good X-Files episode, ‘The Unnatural’. Maybe I had just kept my childhood love of the game suppressed all these years?

When the episode recapping the 1970s came on, I was enthralled in watching my beloved ‘Big Red Machine’ dominate the sport for most of the decade. I recalled, without hesitation, their names - etched into my memory from so many years of following them…Concepcion, Perez, Morgan, Griffey, Foster, Geronimo, Seaver, Rose and my boyhood idol, Johnny Bench.

My nostalgia got the best of me - I started reading up on their exploits after the 70s ended. Always in the back of mind knowing that Pete Rose was ousted and will be blacklisted until shortly after he dies. Which is a damned shame, but a topic for another post.

I learned more about what my hero Bench had been up to (official MLB spokesperson, businessman, actor and being active on the Twitter machine). I read about the Reds 1990 Series win - which I was oblivious to because, as alluded to earlier, I was acting a damned fool around that time. 

I bought myself a jersey - a glorious vintage number 5 - just like the one Bench would have worn in 1975/76. I got myself a dvd box set of the 75 World Series. I even subscribed to MLB.TV so I could watch the Reds and my new ‘home’ team, the Braves, via my iPhone, iPad, Macs or even my Roku.

As mentioned, I haven’t followed the game in years. I was preoccupied with being a fool, then a father, then a fool some more - then eventually a busy nerd who’d rather compute than watch baseball or even read a book (my other lifelong obsession).

But as I get older, it occurs to me that despite the embarrassing riches my career have given me, I had allowed my hobby to turn into a job, then back into my all encompassing activity. I’m *always* working - research, reading, coding, planning - I dream about nothing but technology, and not in a good way. Typically I’m stuck in a loop, trying to solve a problem that seems life threateningly important, but that when I awake is laughingly inane.

Until earlier this week, that is. Last Sunday I watched a ’best of’ compilation I bought on iTunes. It was about the Big Red Machine and it showed every magnificent play in bright, vivid, grainy 1970s colorvision. Incredible swings, amazing catches, game changing pitches. The fans, with their huge mustaches and 70's hair. The players with their shaggy mullets and outlandish sideburns that grew down their ruddy faces, for miles.

I was immersed in my childhood, watching intently as Johnny Bench nailed a two run homer in a crunch situation - a play that would clinch the series for the Reds. A play that would thrill any kid lucky enough to live in nearby Dayton Ohio in the mid-70s, who would the next year spend his birthday at Benches (now closed) Cincinnati restaurant, the ‘Home Plate’.

That night, when I dreamed, I was behind home plate, watching the ball spinning toward Bench and hearing pitches hammer against his leather glove as the stadium glowed like an Instagram vision.

As I slept, for that long seventh inning stretch, I was just a boy dreaming about baseball again.

Play ball.