The Baseball Fan's Bucket List

A few months ago, right before I left for the Cactus League trip, I purchased this book at Borders called The Baseball Fan's Bucket List. This list comprised of about 200 different items that every baseball fan needed to see, experience or do before they died. A few included going to Wrigley Field, going to the Hall of Fame, experiencing a Red Sox-Yankees game, and many others. I have become very enamored with this book and it has really directed my passion of baseball road trips into a more focused goal. However, there are some items on this list that have absolutely nothing to do with road trips and are a more expressive form of the game.

A few months back, my girlfriend said that her workout group was forming a city league softball team. I had read in The Bucket List that every baseball fan should play in a recreational league baseball/softball team, so I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to fulfill that requirement. I had an old softball mitt laying around, so I began throwing the larger ball around loosening up the "ol' soup bone" after a long winter. I went to Wal-Mart and bought a cheap bat and knocked a few balls around at the batting cages.

I hadn't played organized baseball or softball since middle school because my life usually revolved around track and field for most of the season. But after I started to play, I forgot just how much fun it is to actually play the sport I so enjoy watching. Since I was part of a large workout group, over thirty people showed up for the first game wanting to play. I only got in for two innings, but I caught two balls in left field and beat out a throw for an infield single. We ended up losing by seven, but, even in my limited time playing, I had a blast.

Since a lot of the players had never played the game before, I sort of took on the role as the on-field coach. I directed strategy, helped set up the lineup, coordinated defensive strategies, etc. Even when I wasn't playing, I was in the third base coaches box chewing on sunflower seeds being a coach.

We learned some valuable lessons after our first game, so we decided to split up the teams evenly and have half play on even weeks and half play on odd weeks. I was on the team that played last week. I played the entire seven innings in left field without making an error. Going 3 for 4 with three rbis and two runs scored, I rose my batting average to a cool .800. We still lost by ten, but our team worked hard. You could see that the game was starting to click for a lot of people that looked lost the week before.

I found that I can actually play the game I really enjoy watching and have expressed passion for in this blog. Base hits, smart base running and solid defense. In other words, Small Ball. Whenever I'd get up to bat, the defense would move back to the edge of the infield and outfield expecting me to launch some sort of a tape-measure home run. In response to their positioning, I would hit a slow dribbler up one of the baselines and use my speed to get on. Figuring that I can go from first to third on a single, I could then be driven in by a sac fly or groundout. It's how players like Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and Joe Jackson used to play.

I have fulfilled this portion of The Bucket List. However, I want to keep playing in these rec leagues because they are so much fun and keep me in shape. I think for the next season, in late summer, I might build my own team of my friends. As I indicated before, this is more of an expressive love of the game that cannot be planned out in an itinerary or a ballpark. It is just a fun gig that adds to the allure of what I'm doing as a whole.

A little more than a week remains until the Surfliner trip to Southern California. My first ever trip to Dodger Stadium is quickly approaching, and I am so excited to see this park. I will write up a more detailed itinerary before I leave next week that goes into more detail.

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)