I will admit, I was worried. Landing a sports journalism job from June through July seemed like my ultimate irony. I'd kill for the opportunity, but once this year's ho-hum NBA Finals ended there wasn't much to cover besides summer baseball. Baseball!?
Besides the World Series, baseball has never held my interest. It's not nearly as glamorous as the other pro sports. When was the last time you heard the Neptunes lay down a beat for a baseball commercial? Why do so many players' waistlines rival those of the guy in Section 14 guzzling his fifth beer? And why on earth do the games take so long?
In the dregs of a 162-game regular season, I decided, baseball was hardly worth getting excited about.
After this summer, I will admit, I was wrong.
Summer baseball, in so many ways, is exactly what my life as a sports fan was missing. I spend fall with the crunch of the leaves and the linebackers, winter with shoes squeaking on hardwood and tires squealing on ice, but only now do I realize that sizzling grills and the hiss of a just-opened cold one belong not just to the summer barbeque, but also to the ballpark.
Perhaps my conversion was inevitable. I spent the summer in New York, baseball's Mecca if it ever had one. On a Wednesday night with nothing to do, one of my coworkers mentioned that the Yankees had cheap student seats. A short subway ride and five dollars later, I was having an emotional crisis: my thorough dislike for the Yankees running right up against my sense of awe at being in Yankee Stadium. I could practically feel "Babe was here" etched into the back of my uncomfortable blue seat.
That night, I watched the Astros no-hit the Yankees with six different pitchers. An unbelievable sight, and though the home crowd certainly wasn't happy, those of us who don't subscribe to Steinbrenner were ecstatic.
At the time, I didn't see our joy as more than vindicated jealousy, but when I put in a gleeful call to a hardcore Houston fan, his first words struck me:
"So, how does it feel to watch history?"
This is where baseball embarrasses other pro sports --- history and tradition. There's no chicken-and-the egg dilemma here; baseball came first and has lasted longest, and for that reason alone the game deserves more credit than I ever gave it. No-hitters are the stuff of sports legend, and can happen as easily in June as in September. This one in particular was worth every pitch to see.
The cherry on my summer baseball sundae wasn't even in the major leagues. Strapped for cash and tired of nosebleeds, I took my sister to a Brooklyn Cyclones game. The Cyclones are one of the Mets' single-A affiliates and barring the no-hitter, they put on the best baseball I saw in New York. Perhaps because we could actually see the ball. Eleven dollars got us seats right behind home plate, so close that when we discussed a player's
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