My son prefers baseball to hockey. This is, well, unfortunate.
In my early teen years, I loved baseball. I listened to over 120 games a year. And this was when most games were broadcast over radio, none of this endless television we have today. Then the 1994 strike happened and my team died (Montreal Expos) and my love affair ended.
It took a Giants World Series Win for me to watch a game that didn’t involve a bunch of drinking buddies or a corporate outing.
Today I took my son to his second baseball game. And we got some pretty good seats because I practically never go, so when I do I … admittedly … splurge.
After two years of taking him to hockey games, I figured that baseball would appear to be the excruciatingly boring sport that it is. Except the Mets scored a bunch of runs in the first, and then the Giants scored in the second and third so there was a lot of action happening. And the fans were cheering and the stadium was rocking and he was obviously having a great time.
And the reality is that inspite of being surrounded with hockey, and hockey games, whenever we pass kids playing baseball he stares at them as if he has seen heaven. Baseball is this magical sport that he just can’t tear himself away from.
Then I had to ask: So Kid, Hockey or Baseball? And seduced by the sounds of the stadium, the excellent food and the cheering crowds, he said: Baseball!
My only hope is that by the fourth inning when the game settled down and the heat got oppressive he was muttering: I am bored. And by the 6th inning was demanding I take him home. Then we got some more runs in the 7th inning and he was again entranced.
Later on walking back to the train station, I asked: Do you like baseball or do you like going on the train? And he said: Trains…
But later on at home, the kid set up a ball on a cone and swung the bat and ran around the bases.
Damn. I will be going to baseball games.
Time to relearn my Sabermetrics…
