I'm in love...

I wrote this a couple of years ago, but it's as true today as then, plus, now that I'm home most days I can watch a million games!

It's been a long and tawdry affair, full of passion and romance, anger and excitement, joy and disappointment, laughter and tears; the ultimate highs and lows that one can only experience when it's true love. There's been times when we drifted apart a little, a couple of times when I seriously wondered if this was it, yet I'm always seduced back - my feelings may be hurt, but I always get over it. Each year as the cold winds of winter give way to the green grass and warm days of spring, my my mind drifts to my love; bundled up all winter spending time by the hot stove, my love embraces the spring, revels in the dog days of summer and is best in the fall. How did this happen, how did I fall so hopelessly head over heels in love? How can it be "'til death do us part" at age 7?

Some of my earliest memories are of time spent with my love, I was so young and innocent yet I could not resist, it was love at first sight. My love was at once laid back and easy going, yet difficult and complicated; enjoyed by so many yet truly understood by so few; my love's diamonds are magnificent yet I've come to know the dark secrets and I'm hurt but still in love. We share a history together that can not be easily dismissed, and we are destined to grow old together, til death do us part. I LOVE BASEBALL! There, I've said it, laugh if you like, but I LOVE BASEBALL!

OK,this probably did not shock those of you who know me well, for how can one even attempt to keep secret a passion that runs so deep? And after all, my love has been with me for longer than most of you have been alive; we are two yet one, I am not who I am without my love of baseball. So I ask again, how did this happen?

My first baseball memory is of a Friday night one summer, the men's softball league played triple headers on Fridays at St Patrick Park in New Orleans, and as kids we'd fetch foul balls, track down homers in the chest high weeds over the left field fence and hope to take home a cracked bat almost as big as we were. This night I couldn't have been more than six or seven years old, but Dad had to come get me from the park because I wasn't leaving until the last out. In 1967, at age 7, I learned that baseball was not only played on the playground around the corner from my house, but there were superheroes playing in The Majors. Two things stuck from that first year - a former Jesuit Blue Jay with a sweet swing, Rusty Staub, played right field for the Houston Astros and their games came on the radio; and far away in Boston, with the Green Monster lurking behind him, Carl Yastrzemski, won the triple crown leading the league in home runs, RBIs and batting average - who'd thought then that it wouldn't happen again to this day? That was the year my love enticed me and instilled my boyhood dream of playing left field for the Red Sox and started my life long love for the Houston Astros.

I could go on and on about my baseball memories and almost did, but here are the things that I will always remember about my love - Nolan Ryan signs with the Astros and takes the team to the playoffs for the first time ever, the all too frequent strikes culminating with the cancellation of the 1994 World Series (you really almost lost me that time), taking the kids out of school early to go to an Opening Day game in the Astrodome, Gina and I at Enron Park watching Tom Glavine and John Smoltz defeat the Astros 1-0 in the Divisional Playoffs thanks to a Lugo error, the 18 inning thriller against the Braves that sent the Astros to their first World Series ever and seeing games in the Astrodome, Minute Maid, the Ball Park at Arlington, Camden Yards, old Riverfront stadium with the new park going up next door, Jacobs Field and the Trop in Tampa. My tribute to you, my love, are my sons Ryan and Nolan and a wife who actually encouraged me to name them after my hero.

Sure, my love, you've got your faults - the DH, the whole steroids mess, abuses of the young Latin American ball players and crazy salary structures that make it difficult for many teams to compete - but just when I start to wonder about our relationship,  I open my arms wide and embrace you with a love that has grown for 44 years and is still as fresh and passionate as ever. I LOVE BASEBALL!  Enjoy the season and GO ASTROS!