My Life-long Love Affair With Baseball!

What an amazing time of year to be a sports fan. The NHL playoffs are about to start, my Montreal Canadiens are about to battle the big Bad Bruins for the 33rd time in post-season history while the Maple Leafs fell short once again. The NBA playoff match ups are being set, it's Masters weekend in Golf, Wrestlemania just happened, and even Cricket is on TV everyday. All these events make me excited for each evening's action, but the icing on the cake is the fact that Baseball is back!

I have been a fan of baseball since I was 4 years old. I loved to watch the Jays and Expos back then. (We only had 3 TV stations). I grew up watching Andre Dawson, Jessie Barfield, Tim Raines, George Bell, Tim Wallach, Tony Fernandez and the like. Every evening after school we would play backyard ball in either my field or Doucette's field (My buddies Darren and Glen's home). We would act out every scenario. Our favorite hitters, pitchers and fielders. If I think about it I can still feel the cool breeze and smell the wood stoves from the houses surrounding the yard. We played every evening and those games meant the world. Heck, 25 years later and we still laugh about the time I hit the old oil barrel in the right-center gap. It was as if I hit the light tower like Roy Hobbs in the movie The Natural. Looking back, it was maybe a 150-175 foot hit. Didn't matter. I knew the next day it would be talked about, and I walked with the appropriate amount of swagger.

Baseball has always done that to me. Teleported regular life to something much bigger. Life stood still, baseball moved forward, got all of my attention and love. As I grew into my teens my MLB loyalties went from the Detroit Tigers (we got US cable when I was 10) to the Atlanta Braves and TBS. They stunk at the time but Fulton County Stadium is where I believed that I was during every game that I played. I could hear the chant, see the chop. My love for the game had turned to an obsession. The old oil drum now turned into the alder bushes in right-center field at the official town ball park on Father Joy's Road. I was Fred McGriff now, my bat helicoptering above my head at the end of my swing. In centerfield I was Otis Nixon, but in big games, I carried that swagger again, like Deion Sanders. I was Prime Time. I lived it.

Baseball got me through a lot of tough times. I was bullied a lot in school. I had skipped a grade, and was younger and much smaller than my peers. I fought depression and wondered was life all worth it. Baseball was my relief, it was my exit of reality to a world that I fit in, I loved, and that I was actually good at. When I was 19 I had emergency surgery and a huge Cancer scare. Even though the surgeon said I was very fortunate, all I really cared about was the rehab time and if I would be ready opening day. I was, on a limited role, but I was there.It has given me hundreds of friends across the world actually, from CANADA/US to New Zealand, Great Britain, Cuba, and Mexico. Fans are everywhere!

As the years went on, my level of ball and the teams I played on became more advanced, yet the parallels between me on the field and my imagination of being a Brave never really went away. It still doesn't. Now the ball is co-ed, played for fun, and I obviously don't have the body to run track anymore. I play to smile and laugh, to meet new people, and to occasionally show the flair of the player I once was, trust me it doesn't happen quite often. But, if I listen carefully, I can still hear the chant, still see the chop!

PLAY BALL!