Introduction

I never really cared about baseball.

I didn't play Little League, and I spent my time on the middle school team in the dugout, eating sunflower seeds, or else way out in whichever side of the outfield is where they generally put players who are liabilities (common sense suggests this is right field, but the idiom identifies wacky ideas as coming "way out of left field," so I'm not sure...it wasn't center, I can say that for sure).

Going to games as a kid, I enjoyed consuming hot dogs and reveling in the broken-down aesthetic of single-A ballparks, but never payed much attention to the "action" or cared about outcomes. I think the Mariners almost won the pennant one time when I was in high school, and there were TVs set up so people could watch games between classes. I enjoyed the general feeling of excitement, but didn't watch any of the actual baseball.

So this summer I'm turning that around. Who knows how long it will last.