Batter UP!

Baseball is a big deal in this household, as it was in the home I grew up in. I was weaned on it. The first song I ever learned was take me out to the ballgame........sung loudly on the way to watch my Dad play ball. For years I played the game. My closest friends through my high school years were the infield of my ball team. My Dad coached us for a couple of years and took us from a team of "Bad News Bears" to a well oiled, super sliding, cohesive winning team. My sisters still play in a league. Though I hung up my cleats a while back, I can still throw "like a boy"..........hard and fast........... and make the receiver's glove hand sting when they catch it. Yes, baseball is a sport that filters into our daily routine from April to the end of October. Oh, who am I kidding? We talk baseball in January for goodness sake.

My son (above last year) has caught the baseball bug and he's looking forward to playing again this year. This week, the Major Leagues kickstarted their season. I havent seen Max as excited in a long time.......He's pumped, primed and ready to soak up all the Toronto Blue Jays can muster and so far we have not been disappointed. WHAT a great beginning of the season. Love it! The mighty Jays swept the series against our rivals the Boston Red Sox this weekend. YES! The same team that won the World Series. Today, we watched our slugger Frank Thomas hit a grand slam with his poetic swing and all felt right in the world.

One thing about baseball is the pacing of it............and as much as we want to get all keyed up for a potentially amazing season, we know better (we're Leafs fans too for goodness sake and have been waiting for a miracle since 1968, so we do know better) than to imagine anything beyond the next series of games. Superstition reigns supreme in baseball.........you can't get too cocky. You can't predict wins. You can't because it will jinx the whole season........or so I was told today when I spoke out loud how I felt about the possibility of ending up in first at the end of the season.........so I won't be saying it aloud again. :)

The picture below? I took it at a Jays vs. A's game last summer when my son Max and I travelled up to Ontario for a vacation visit..............just the two of us......to visit family. We were given two tickets along the first baseline, only a couple of rows up from the field. They were amazing seats and the two of us had the best time cheering on our beloved team. Around February of this year, Max made a list of home games in the 2008 schedule and hung it up on the refridgerator....... it looks like our summer vacation will somehow revolve around one or two of those dates as it is imperative that we attend at least one in person.

Yes, we have baseball fever..........let the season unfold as it should.

Fredericton's Matt Stairs and his strange swing. hey, it works.