MARTY'S BLOG HAS MOVED!!

Well, really I just wanted to change the name.
To do that, I had to move.

Please click here to come to the new location - HEARTSTOPS.


http://heartstops.blogspot.com/

Baseball - Take the Swings

Baseball.  So many have said so much - and this from Edward Abbey:
"Baseball is a slow, sluggish game with frequent and trivial interruptions, offering the spectator many opportunities to reflect at leisure upon the situation on the field.  This is what the fan loves about the game."


Well, that is one thing this fan loves about the game.  That we can patiently sit and think through the inning, the number of outs, the count, the defensive options - all before the batter sees his first pitch.  Then recalibrate before the second pitch.  All the while slowly and completely reveling in the beauty of the day.


Baseball is a pleasure and on a crisp, sunny, late afternoon, it is magic. Even here in my adopted home town where we have no major league team, no farm team --- I am learning to love college baseball.  Because that is what we have.  And it is still magic.  It's still a ball field, it is still remarkably green as the lights come on with the sun moving down; it is still all order and chaos.   A triple is still exciting, a boy who fails to swing at the third strike is a tragedy, an error is heartbreak and a runner bouncing up after a stolen base an explosive and marvelous triumph.  It is such a simple and unimaginably complex game.


And here from PeeWee Reese: 
If I had my career to play over, one thing I'd do differently is swing more. Those 1,200 walks I got, nobody remembers them.

It is baseball.  I do believe I'll head out to the game today.

February - Who Says It is Not the Cruelest Month?

No redeeming value to February.  It's hard to spell, it's cold, it's often just  miserable.  This year, it has been horrid in these parts, and I don't mean the weather.  Who the hell said April was the Cruelest  Month?  I think they were idiots,  and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Out of some desperation, people throw in Valentine's Day and President's Day to try to soften it up, but no one is fooled. Temporarily distracted perhaps, but not fooled.

The month sucks.  The best thing I can say about it this time around is thank god 2011 is not a leap year.  I don't know that I could have borne a 29th day.
The Ides are looking good.

What can we possibly say about a month that has - as its very best moment -  Groundhog Day?

Even this post sucks.

 But love the dude to the right.