First of all, thank you for noticing. And second, no.
But for some reason, once a year, during the World Series, I become an armchair fan. Especially when it’s the Dodgers v. Yankees.
Suddenly, I’m an expert on when and when not to take a swing. Miraculously I can call the pitches better than the umpires. I’m even starting to be fluent in the players’ names.
Then again, “Mookie” is kind of hard to forget.
I don’t go as far as wearing the team jersey, but I do yell at the tv from the comfort of my reading chair.
The cruel tease of my career (laughing for using the word “career”) is that at every agency I ever worked at without exception, I was always the copywriter who got assigned the sports tie-ins for clients. It's safe to say the most research I ever did for anything was going to the glossary for whatever sport I was writing about so I could speak in the language of the realm.
I do however love movies about baseball. Major League, A League of Their Own, The Natural, Moneyball, Bull Durham, The Rookie and, of course, Field Of Dreams.
For seven games a year, if the series goes that long, I’m all in.
When it comes to this post, it's the bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded. So instead of some snappy line or bad joke about covering the bases, I’ll leave you with my favorite speech ever about the sport, courtesy of the late, great James Earl Jones.
Now if I could just get the wife to bring me a Dodger dog.
