Thursday, April 30, 2009

Say Goodbye to Baseball

I’ve said goodbye to baseball, and it’s not been easy. I calculate I’ve spent every second of almost two years’ worth of my life watching, listening, reading and talking baseball. Since I was ten years old, I’ve watched at least 125 games each season, and at four hours per game for thirty two years, the baseball-filled minutes on my cosmic cab driver’s meter tumble down at a frenzied clip.

And it’s only grown more intense in the last five years. With the addition of ways to watch, read and listen, I’ve increased my baseball commitment exponentially. How can I resist the Red Sox on TV, the Mets online and whoever’s trying to beat the Yankees on ESPN’s “Gamecast?” For those who don’t know, Gamecast is the single most important invention of the new millennium, followed closely by stuffed crust pizza and the ShamWow! With it, you can follow any major league baseball game silently online for free, tracking every pitch, hit and run, presented in a clinical, telegraph-like style that feeds a fan’s need to never miss a thing. At this rate, the next thirty two years of my life may not leave much time for anything other than baseball. So it’s time to reflect.

I’ve decided to go cold turkey for a spell to find other pursuits to occupy my time. Maybe I’ll learn a new language or my kids’ middle names or take up camping or Frisbee golf. The options are endless.

I commit to two full weeks of a baseball-free life in all its forms. No longer can I start my day with box scores and summaries in the paper, quick reviews of video highlights online, and a scan of the night’s pitching match-ups. And once game time rolls around, I can’t find myself in front of the TV or offer to drive to Laconia for milk just to catch a few innings on satellite radio. Of course, falling asleep to the nightly cable roundups must cease. I need to jump off this non-stop loop of baseball or I’ll never know what life is like outside it.

My wife and kids agree but doubt I can do it. “You tried this before and failed,” my son, Sam, reminds me. He’s right. I attempted a season-long ban last year, but survived a mere five days in January, undone by salacious trade rumors in the paper. I email friends, asking them to hold off sharing anything baseball-related for fourteen days; most agree, probably thinking this moment of insanity will pass. One friend, Bozo from Chicago, is hostile. “Stop this. Stop it immediately,” he yells into the phone. “You did this a while back. You know what happened – it’s all YOUR FAULT!” He’s referring to the role I may have played in the Mets’ infamous late-season collapse of 2007. I’d tried to stop watching earlier that summer, lasting only two days during the All-Star break. “They blew it because you lost your faith. Doing it again makes NO SENSE!”

I know that two weeks without baseball in April may seem like no big deal and that perhaps saying no in October would be a greater test, but that’s crazy talk. Besides, a baseball-free October would make me like a 2008 Yankee fan, and I hate the Yankees.

Day One begins poorly. The first words I hear from my clock radio are, “And Tim Wakefield took a no-hitter into the eighth”- I shut it off. This is going to take some effort. I manage to avoid the morning paper by closing my eyes and putting the sports section where I can’t see it, and I resist the urge not to visit ESPN.com. At night, I read an entire issue of National Geographic, learning more about frozen baby woolly mammoths and arctic sea ice than most Norwegians.

The first few days are awkward, like I’m in a fight with someone, avoiding eye contact at all costs. I can’t read the sports pages, won’t follow news online and almost break my ankle at the gym trying not to watch TV. It hasn’t been even three days, and I really miss it. With spite, I pray for rain. If I can’t watch baseball, then no one can. But I’m reminded of that Jimmy Buffet song about it always being time for a drink somewhere – it must be baseball weather somewhere, right? Good lord. I’m starting to make Jimmy Buffet references. I need help.

This might mean I’m experiencing the Joe Pepitone Five Stages of Baseball-Related Grief – annoyance, anxiety, loss, corruption and incarceration. Let’s hope I pull it together before those last two stages kick in. I don’t want to end up like Joe.

Friday night is rough. My wife’s out and my kids are occupied, and I have the TV, PC and XM Radio to myself. But I remain pure, instead reading newspaper stories about feral parrots in Brooklyn and wooden water pipes in Washington, then reorganizing my sock drawer before bed. Somebody shoot me.

Saturday is almost impossible. Sam reads non-baseball headlines from the paper in a mocking tone. “Dad, did you know that the Celtics are ready to play the Bulls in the playoffs?” He saunters out of the kitchen with a giggle, offering me no nourishment in this self-imposed barren exile. “Do you want to hear what happened in the Yankee game?” he announces at dinner that night. “Sure!” my wife shouts. Sam whispers in her ear. “Wow! That’s actually kind of shocking,” she chuckles. This isn’t fair. Whisper and Chuckles may drive me insane.

Sunday arrives. It’s Day Four, and I’m learning to live without baseball. Instead of flipping between screens, pages and stations all day, I paint my mailbox, watch my daughter do the hula hoop to Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” (I can explain), and go for a long bike ride. A few days later, my wife tells me, “This has been the best six days of my life,” and I’m not sure how to take the news.

But the resentment lingers. Driving to work as Week Two in the Wasteland begins, I see reminders everywhere. Cars with license plates like SOXCHIK, SOXRUL and FENWAY mock my pain as they speed along, their drivers listening to a recap of last night’s game or chatting with pals about Jacoby Ellsbury’s healthy head of hair. But I soldier on. With less than a week to go, the end is in sight.

Then things start to fall apart. We’re on a quick vacation in the White Mountains, and I make the mistake of wandering into the bar on Friday night at game time to learn it’s a Red Sox-Yankees weekend. It’s wall-to-wall Red Sox Nation, and I stare everywhere but the TV. A guy behind me, a real mouthbreather, starts crowing about the Sox. I’m now standing in the middle of a crowded bar plugging my ears like a first grader avoiding a scary story, humming to myself to drown out the voices. I escape before the first pitch is thrown, at least I think I do. My eyes are shut as I run away.

I think this confirms what had been my biggest fear – everyone talking about baseball all the time, but as I escape, I realize this is the only spontaneous discussion of baseball I’ve heard in almost two weeks. I’d thought it’d be common to hear strangers discuss Varitek’s batting swoon or how poor run support crippled Santana’s chances to win twenty games. But I now know it’s not. It’s me! I’m the only one who brings it up. I’m that guy who interrupts normal conversations about property taxes, deer ticks and buffalo chicken wraps with statements like, “Big Papi’s wrist injury hurt him from turning on the inside heat, that’s for sure.” I guess everyone around is not always talking baseball – they’re just waiting for me to take a breath so they can change the subject.

Then, Sunday night, I reach the breaking point. From Sam’s furtive channel surfing, I learn the Sox-Yankees game is on Sunday Night Baseball, but I won’t give in. I turn in early, hoping to dream about the lessons I’ve learned from such a bold experiment. I wake up around midnight and can’t fall back asleep, my mind consumed with what I’ve missed tonight, this weekend and over the past eleven days. I creep downstairs to turn on the TV but stop myself. I’m so close to surviving this banishment, and I must remain strong. I’m awake for another three hours tortured by the unknown. Skipping the Sox-Yankees series has upset my circadian rhythms for good, and I may never sleep well again.

As my fortnight hardball prohibition ends, I’m wondering what will change. Will I skip a game now and then? Will I stop blurting out meaningless statistics? Will I go spelunking instead of watching a twi-night doubleheader? Maybe I should ease myself back – start with a few Fisher Cats games, but I’m kidding myself. Double A baseball is a gateway drug. By Memorial Day I’ll be watching tape-delayed Mariners – Blue Jays games in reverse, looking for hidden clues in the signs from the third base coach. No – it’s all or nothing for me. Moderation is for fools. Let’s play ball.