Florida Mann: It is almost opened day

It is almost baseball's opening day and Florida -Man was used to be very excited. I am no longer and I know why and I'll tell you.

On Wednesday my friend Tom and I went to a spring training game in Palm Beach. It was a beautiful, cloudless day in Südflorida. Temperatures in the 70s and low humidity. There may be 2,000 people. Great little stadium, red dirt, green grass, white lines. The beer, the brats, the Cracker jacks were excellent. Incidentally, a bag of cracker Jack was 4.79 US dollars. And they thought eggs were expensive.

A group of nameless people, for me and every other except relatives and friends, young men who represented the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals played nine innings. The score was NATS 9, Stro 3, but the score meant nothing. They are a few people who try to become big Leaguer. You have to feel for you. Fabulous opportunity and what could be better than wearing a large league uniform, even if it is only for a month. I envy them. I really envy them.

The reason why I am no longer enthusiastic about new seasons is related to the playlessness of the players. It is not just because I am an old complainant that I am. It is because players can change the teams so often that they can see the same team for two years in a row. And the players come and go pretty quickly. The average career is about five years, but there are obviously exceptions. There are people who play for 15 years or more.

Another negative for me is the fact that mediocre players earn millions. If you know baseball, you know that an average of 0.250 is pretty good these days. In my time (I hate the sentence anyway), the good players met in the low up to the mid 300. The average boys were about 0.275.

I will remember here The time machine is set to 1950.

I was a committed baseball fan and player. There were fewer teams in those days, so it was easier, but I learned the overall ranking in the newspaper every day and I was able to tell you the most scores from the day and night. Of course nobody asked. We lived in Kansas City, where at that time there was a Yankee farm team, and my grandfather Moe brought me to play on Sundays. We have seen all future Yankee stars of the time on the way to the majors.

A word about Moe. He was seriously injured in a car accident and had extreme pain in his legs. In the evening he soaked his thighs with hot washing clothes. But he still brought it together enough so that we can bring the tram to the games because I wanted to go.

I'm afraid I never thanked him enough for it. I know I didn't. I will not do any excuses because there is none.

But every day in summer I also played with friends with friends from dawn to dusk and thought I had a future in the game. My father made me clear the summer of my 17th birthday.

I will continue to move into my baseball past. Some time ago I wrote this during a time ago extreme nostalgia about baseball. It should be poetry.

In my head a picture

My father in his suit and in his tie

slips from his coat and lays down

It on the grass near the car

He just parked in our entrance.

I am 12 years old.

I've been waiting for it to come

At home and games catch.

I thought I was a pitcher. I had all

The movements and I could throw okay

But didn't have the size to be one

Real player. I didn't know that.

He did it, but still played.

I gave him a catcher

Mitt, a gift from a friend of him, and

He crouched in front of the garage door

Behind a plate I sketched on the concrete with white chalk.

I had taken over wood strips a long time ago

The garage windows because I wasn't always exactly.

My first throw was right. He gave up a thumbs up.

My second was right too.

The third hit the concrete tariff in front of him

and hit him into that Ankle.

He winced.

I know it hurt. It was my best faster ball.

Maybe 40 miles per hour, but from ankle over his

Wing tips. He shook it off.

He always did it and got ready for the next one.

So my baseball fanaticism is deeply rooted, but I don't think I will ever get the old feeling back. The thrill to see the same players in the same team every year. Maybe other older fans don't feel that way, but I bet some do.

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