Monday, June 13, 2005
The Boys of Summer are Soaring
I am a long time baseball fan. I love the game! I love to play, although I have long since given that up, and I love to watch. I became an avid baseball fan when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I had developed a hatred of my name by that time. I felt it was a silly name and no one should be caught dead with a name like Stanley. What were my parents thinking anyway? Then I learned about baseball.
I learned that the closest major league team, the St. Louis Cardinals, had a star player on the team whose name was, gasp, Stan Musial! Wow! A grown up with a name of Stanley. Stan the Man they called him. Cool! I had the same name as this great baseball player! That was the end of my hatred for my name. And it was the beginning of my love affair with the game of baseball.
I would listen to the Cardinals games on the radio during the long, hot summer evenings in southern Illinois in the late 50s and early 60s. Harry Caray, Jack Buck and Joe Garagiola were the Cardinal's announcers and they made the games come alive for my wild, youthful imagination. I loved those nights!
I still love baseball. And I still love the Cardinals. The game has changed a lot since I was a kid but it is essentially the same game. The players are really what has changed the most. And that is only inevitable. I have a lifetime goal to visit and see a game at each of the major league parks. So far I have been to 14 different stadiums to see at least one game. I have 16 more to visit.
Since I have lived in Gainesville, I moved here in 1985, I have reluctantly become a fan of College sports. It started with the football team and Emmitt Smith. It was hard to ignore that kind of talent showcasing himself in the local news. I became a Gator fan because of Emmitt Smith.
Then it was the basketball team. I jumped on that bandwagon as I cheered the lackluster team onward to an actual trip to the Final Four in 1994 with Lon Kruger. The National Championship game against Michigan State in 2000 was almost a fantasy come true. Almost. It's so hard to get that far.
During my 20 years in Gainesville, I have also paid attention to the Gator baseball team but mostly on the periphery. It's those damned aluminum bats! I don't like them. I wish the college game would ban those things and go back to wood bats, like they are supposed to be. The ping off of an aluminum bat just doesn't sound right. Give me the old crack of a wooden bat anyday.
But this year I am revelling in the succes of the Florida baseball program. They have probably the most talented bunch of guys they have ever had together at one time and they are playing like it. They won the SEC regular season title and although they lost two straight in the SEC tournament to get knocked out of a championship there, they have come back in the NCAA tournament and showed what they are made of.
Three convincing wins in the Regionals over Stetson, North Carolina and Notre Dame gave them the chance to host a Super Regional for the first time and who do the get matched with but Florida State. Yey! Do they crumble against the prowess of the ever awesome FSU bats? No! They beat them soundly in game one, 8-1 and start off the first inning of game two with 4 runs. A decisive victory again and they have won 5 straight in the tourney and earned a trip to Omaha for the College Wortd Series.
They have been there before, four times to be exact and the last time was in 1998. But they have never been very impressive once there. The awe of Rosenblatt Stadium perhaps has dimmed their chances. This time seems different. This time they may go all the way. The characters in this play, the Gator players, do not want to let this storybook ride end. And their fans don't either.
Whether the Gators go on to the championship remains to be seen. I hope they will and I feel they have the best chance they have had to do so. They are poised enough and level-headed enough to know that the excitement of getting there is not the final stage in their journey. They are playing for the gold and they have a great chance to make it happen.
I will be rooting for them heartily. The game I have loved all my life has expanded for me to take in the excitement of college. Attending a college game is almost as good as attending a major league game. And it is a lot cheaper, too.
I love baseball! Go Gators. And thanks so very much to the coach who helped get them this far, Pat McMahon.
OH
I learned that the closest major league team, the St. Louis Cardinals, had a star player on the team whose name was, gasp, Stan Musial! Wow! A grown up with a name of Stanley. Stan the Man they called him. Cool! I had the same name as this great baseball player! That was the end of my hatred for my name. And it was the beginning of my love affair with the game of baseball.
I would listen to the Cardinals games on the radio during the long, hot summer evenings in southern Illinois in the late 50s and early 60s. Harry Caray, Jack Buck and Joe Garagiola were the Cardinal's announcers and they made the games come alive for my wild, youthful imagination. I loved those nights!
I still love baseball. And I still love the Cardinals. The game has changed a lot since I was a kid but it is essentially the same game. The players are really what has changed the most. And that is only inevitable. I have a lifetime goal to visit and see a game at each of the major league parks. So far I have been to 14 different stadiums to see at least one game. I have 16 more to visit.
Since I have lived in Gainesville, I moved here in 1985, I have reluctantly become a fan of College sports. It started with the football team and Emmitt Smith. It was hard to ignore that kind of talent showcasing himself in the local news. I became a Gator fan because of Emmitt Smith.
Then it was the basketball team. I jumped on that bandwagon as I cheered the lackluster team onward to an actual trip to the Final Four in 1994 with Lon Kruger. The National Championship game against Michigan State in 2000 was almost a fantasy come true. Almost. It's so hard to get that far.
During my 20 years in Gainesville, I have also paid attention to the Gator baseball team but mostly on the periphery. It's those damned aluminum bats! I don't like them. I wish the college game would ban those things and go back to wood bats, like they are supposed to be. The ping off of an aluminum bat just doesn't sound right. Give me the old crack of a wooden bat anyday.
But this year I am revelling in the succes of the Florida baseball program. They have probably the most talented bunch of guys they have ever had together at one time and they are playing like it. They won the SEC regular season title and although they lost two straight in the SEC tournament to get knocked out of a championship there, they have come back in the NCAA tournament and showed what they are made of.
Three convincing wins in the Regionals over Stetson, North Carolina and Notre Dame gave them the chance to host a Super Regional for the first time and who do the get matched with but Florida State. Yey! Do they crumble against the prowess of the ever awesome FSU bats? No! They beat them soundly in game one, 8-1 and start off the first inning of game two with 4 runs. A decisive victory again and they have won 5 straight in the tourney and earned a trip to Omaha for the College Wortd Series.
They have been there before, four times to be exact and the last time was in 1998. But they have never been very impressive once there. The awe of Rosenblatt Stadium perhaps has dimmed their chances. This time seems different. This time they may go all the way. The characters in this play, the Gator players, do not want to let this storybook ride end. And their fans don't either.
Whether the Gators go on to the championship remains to be seen. I hope they will and I feel they have the best chance they have had to do so. They are poised enough and level-headed enough to know that the excitement of getting there is not the final stage in their journey. They are playing for the gold and they have a great chance to make it happen.
I will be rooting for them heartily. The game I have loved all my life has expanded for me to take in the excitement of college. Attending a college game is almost as good as attending a major league game. And it is a lot cheaper, too.
I love baseball! Go Gators. And thanks so very much to the coach who helped get them this far, Pat McMahon.
OH
# posted by OH @ 6:10 AM 
