Once a month blogging was my only goal. No need to be an overachiever despite how hard it tugs at one's heartstrings. It's really not my fault. Watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFQfylQ2Jgg Then you'll understand.
So now. Here we are. I would try to write something witty except that my M-i-L gave me an awesome new camera which is totally not distracting. I really like cameras. Thanks Jane!
But what I like even more than cameras, is writing letters ... and so ...
Dear Baseball,
First, let me say that you have totally swept me off my feet. I once saw you as this stupid, boring unending thing that may have involved cute guys but was totally not worth the time commitment. Now, I am older. I can appreciate you for what you really are. (In a word, complicated.) I can (almost) understand and value your baggage, your required patience with multiple and often ceaseless innings, and your extreme need for sustained knee-area pants scrubbing, which, by the way, I would be way cooler with if you weren't always in dire straits to be so WHITE. A girl appreciates a good healthy color, sometimes. Roll with it, dude. So, despite the fact that I love you, let's both agree to be less complicated, how 'bout it?
Second, let's be real about how much time you require. I didn't mean to have two boys, Baseball. I didn't mean for them to love you and be actually quite good at maintaining a relationship with you. I just wanted everybody to be happy and have fun. In my naive, pre-baseball-boys mind, which never involved pants scrubbing or bats in the house ... especially not the bats ... Lord, those things ... how do they end up in the dining room? See, if you could explain all of that logically in a five-paragraph essay with attention to author, audience, and purpose while avoiding logical fallacies, I might fall even deeper in love with you. But for now, please back off: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Finally, baseball -- could you please not be so fickle? I like a good challenge, but you are living at the mercy of your umpires, Sweet Game. They are totally controlling you. Take back your manhood and make some clear-sighted decisions for once. Stand up to those "He's-Safe-No-He's-Actually-Out" calls. Don't let those Umps control you, friend. They are working for the man. The white-pants man.I hope this finds you well, B. The weather hasn't been good for the last couple of days, so we've missed each other at the field, but spring is full of hope and promise. There will certainly be more opportunities. In the meantime, can we please commit our attention to self-betterment? I will stop sneaking hunks of Trader Joe's Goat Cheese if we can come to this agreement, which I think provides total mutual compromise. Until next time, B,
Sincerely,
Mama K
You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time. ~Jim Bouton, Ball Four, 1970
With those who don't give a damn about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can't think of anything to say to them. ~Art Hill
It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. ~A. Bartlett Giamatti, "The Green Fields of the Mind," Yale Alumni Magazine, November 1977
