Why the sudden baseball obsession?

The short answer: I started playing softball with my neighborhood team.

The long answer: I had a moment during the first game of our softball season.  I was out in left field trying to pay attention to what was happening at the plate. I was terrified that the ball would get hit in my direction, but mostly I was confused by what was going on. I knew the basic rules of the game; there were nuances I'd missed somehow. It was a moment that I realized that I should know what's happening, and I was totally lost.

After that game, I decided that I needed to learn more if I was going to really enjoy my experiment with softball this summer. I decided to do these three things:

1. Watching a lot of baseball movies. Dramatizing sports helps make the game more meaningful.

2. Actually watching a baseball game on TV. (Yes, that's right, I've never watched a baseball game.) Commentators help to explain the game.

3. Have the captain of our softball team watch the game before ours and explain what I should be doing at whatever position I was playing. Generally, try to learn about the game from my teammates and pay close attention to our games.

The more I watched and paid attention, the more I realized that baseball was a great sport. I realized I actually liked baseball. Forty years of my life and I finally discovered baseball!

I'm going to reopen this blog to do some writing about my thoughts on baseball, baseball movies, softball, and generally what it's like to discover baseball at 40.