Opening Day

It's that time of year again!  Baseball season!


Opening day is Friday, it marks the beginning of Major League Baseball's regular season.  Now in Utah baseball is the least popular of all sports, I think.  I mean on my version of Salt Lake-opoly, where the various Salt Lake sports teams are the railroads, guess the one team that got left out?  That's right, The Bee's, heck, even the Grizzlies are on there...  Of course Utah is a little stunted when it comes to sports, back in high school Sports Illustrated did a little sports census, they polled people from all over the country about sports and of all of them, Utah was the only state whose most popular sport was something other than Football or Baseball, it was basketball, which I hate and makes me a social pariah.


A lot of people these days diss on America's past-time,which means they're probably socialist and communist, probably even fascist too.  One big complaint is that it's too slow-paced.  I'll agree, it's slow paced compared to other sports, but baseball is a thinking man's game.  There's a lot of strategy that the casual observer will miss, I'm sure it's like me and soccer, I just see a bunch of guys running around on a field kicking a ball back and forth, the casual observer may only see baseball as throw ball, hit ball.


I honestly didn't enjoy watching baseball until I became a pitcher at the beginning of high school.  There's so much thought, deception and double-think happening up on the mound that most people will never understand.  Every at-bat is like a mini-chess match between pitcher and hitter, each trying to predict what the other is thinking, will this be a fastball? Curve? Change?  It's a little cat-and-mouse my favorite feeling when facing a batter is when I'm ahead in the count and I can see in the batter's eyes he has no idea what is coming next, that I own him.


I'm especially excited for this baseball season because it marks my return to the sport.  A high school buddy of mine put together a team for a mens' baseball league that plays up in Davis and Weber counties.  I'm pretty excited!  I was informed I've got the opening day start!  Like, seriously I'll be throwing the very first pitches of the season for the league.  It's pretty intense, I've got to be ready to pitch in 17 days!  This means I'll be taking my little bro to throw a few times a week from now on.


I'm so excited, I've missed playing and pitching greatly, probably even more than I've missed Hannah.  What?  I'm being honest, my relationship with baseball is older and lasted longer.  I hope I'm ready for this!