Thursday, October 21, 2004

THE CARDINALS

I am slowly growing accustomed to the fact that there are people in this world who like baseball - and not just a few people. LOTS of people. Lots of people who REALLY LIKE BASEBALL.

To me, that's weird. Mostly because where I come from, baseball's, like, not even a sport. Basketball is a sport. Soccer is a sport. Even football is a sport, requiring strength, skill and some degree of athleticism. But baseball ... baseball is for little league boys, or fat, pansy football rejects wearing too-tight pants and grabbing their crotch unneccessarily every 4.7 seconds.

But I think the real reason I have never considered baseball an actual sport is because watching baseball is boring. So Veeeeeerrry Boring. It's like watching golf, another pansy sport for old men (and women, of course! women can play stupid sports along with the best of them!). I mean ... nothing happens in baseball. A batter comes up to the plate, and the pitcher stares at him for five seconds, and the batter ... calls a time out! Nothing has even happened yet, and we have a time-out! whew! Good thing he called a time-out! The pre-pitch tension is unbelievable! And the crowds are going wild! Maybe they're all drunk!

However, since I married into a baseball-loving family (what can you expect? they're from St. Louis), where cheering for the "Cards" is second only to religion and may, in fact, be form of religion in and of itself, I have spent some serious time this fall watching as they fight for their place in the World Series. This is where I would normally spend time making fun of the Cardinals for having the pansiest mascot in a sport reknowned for teams with pansy mascots, but I'm not going to, because, to be honest, I really hope they win. I have two reasons: 1. a sort of biblical-Ruth-wife-complex: "Whither thou goest, I shall go, and thy teams shall be my teams, and thy players, my players," but also because 2. Christofer will be in a baaaaad mood if they lose, and then I'll have to let him win at games so he'll feel better. and I hate losing. Even more than I used to hate baseball.



Go Cards!