Pregame
Today marks the official start of the baseball season. Not just any baseball, but normal, run-of-the-mill baseball. Not Korean Series baseball, not Spring Training baseball, not Fall League baseball, or International baseball. No. None of that shit. Actual baseball. Where wins and losses will make an impact later on in the season.
Sure, the Korean Series was fun. It was cool to see a different cultural look at baseball. For those who didn't decide to wake up at 3 in the morning to watch a sporting event from across the globe, Korea has full-on cheering sections along with cheer teams to keep their fans excited throughout the entire game. This takes place in Mexican and Japanese baseball leagues, so it wasn't a complete surprise, but it is still fun nonetheless. Compare that to American fans, who get more blitzed while getting angrier that the starting pitcher can't throw the slider into the same spot each time they throw the ball.
As I stated before, baseball is exciting because it brings hope and fun to my life. It's not the only thing that does that, but it's the one that has the easiest time doing so. All you have to do to enjoy baseball is turn it on and watch or listen. That's it. I talked this week with an acquaintance about how before I subscribed to MLB.TV I was used to listening to games on the radio. See, that's how my Dodger fandom got to be so great while living in Arizona. We used to broadcast games on an AM station here in town. Also, Arizona didn't have a baseball team when I was a kid. Dodgers games were broadcast here until 2008 if I remember correctly. I believe the first year that Joe Torre was managing the Boys in Blue they stopped broadcasting them. In 2012 I decided to start paying the $20 a year to get the audio-only version of AtBat. That was sufficient for a long time. What changed that habit was when T-Mobile started offering free TV subscriptions to their customers. I couldn't pass up that offer. I no longer have T-Mobile, so I pay the annual fee for the television feed of the games.
I'm lucky to be a Dodgers fan here in Arizona as well. I mean, you can pay for DBacksTV this season, which gives you all of the Diamondbacks games with no blackouts (regular MLB.TV doesn't do that). It's only around $100 and it ensures that you won't miss any of the games, but I like the freedom to click around and watch different teams during the day. The reason that more teams are doing this is because their television contracts are now drying up, and with standard cable and regular TV slowly dying out, there's nowhere else to go for these teams that don't have the type of money and presence like LA does. If the Dodgers were taken off Sportsnet LA, then there would be an uproar that would reverberate well outside of Southern California. That didn't happen with Arizona. Even with them just making the Series, their fans don't have the same impact as larger market teams do.
Now I don't want to be misconstrued on how I feel about the Dbacks this year. I don't want this to be twisted into me downing them as a team. I wrote numerous times last year before their late-season run how I thought they were talented. If anything, their postseason run only goes to show that I was right in all the ways I didn't want to be. I think Arizona has the best rotation in the NL West. That's saying something, especially with guys like Snell and Glasnow being in the conversation.
There's a ton of talk about the Dodgers winning 100 games and waltzing into October unchallenged, but I don't think that's as realistic of a prediction as people are making it out to be. For those unaware, we have a guy playing shortstop who hasn't played it regularly since high school.1 With how analytical the game has become, it's not a stretch to think that teams are going to do their best to exploit that every way they can. I think Mookie will be alright, but with the new rules in play, I think every run saved can be the real difference down the stretch.
Even with those concerns, this is still going to be a very fun team to watch, gambling hysteria aside. Yes, it would be impossible for me to not touch on the Shohei Mania which has in turn morphed into Shohei Terror. Now that the cat is out of the bag when it comes to his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, and his twisting story about gambling addiction and embezzlement, we can all rest assured that this story is not going away any time soon. The billion-dollar weekend that was here when Shohei and Yamamoto were signed has only added fuel to the fire when it comes to Dodgers hate, and this is the accelerant poured onto the bonfire to keep it going through the entire night.
At the risk of possibly sounding like some hipster contrarian, I have been finding myself inside the camp of "don't make heroes out of pro athletes" lately. I know as a Dodgers fan that most would expect me to defend Ohtani to the bitter end, but I don't find myself supporting that. There's a possibility that Shohei was placing bets. To believe otherwise is understandable, but not realistic. Ippei and Ohtani spent night and day with one another. They spent more time together than they did with their significant others. How Shohei only learned about Mizuhara's gambling troubles during the team meeting in Seoul doesn't add up to me. But hey, maybe Shohei was just that aloof and wasn't concerned with money missing out of his bank account. The truth is, no one knows what happened save for Shohei and Ippei.
It's just like Charles Barkley once said: we shouldn't make heroes out of professional athletes. We should be looking up to fathers, grandfathers, teachers, and uncles when it comes to following strong male role models. People laughed at Sir Charles when he made the point initially, but it rings true. Pro athletes have tons of money and time on their hands. It isn't like they are going to be spending both of those assets in a manner where we should be honoring them above the upstanding individuals in our own lives. I also really don't care if my favorite athlete is betting on sports. We crossed that Rubicon long ago. Once Draft Kings took over all of sports just a few years back, that was the nail in the coffin when it came to holding people responsible for gambling.
There's a reason why this shit was heavily regulated just a few years back. I'm all for giving people the right to fuck up their own lives the way they want to, but we also have to evaluate why these laws were put in place. Gambling is all fun and games until you find yourself pocketing $4 million of your best friend and coworker's money to pay off your losses.
Going back to looking up to pro athletes, my buddy Lew and I were talking last night on the infamous "Pro Wrestler Urban Myths"2 list that was put online years ago and has only become more famous as the years have gone by due to the amount of rumors on there that have been unearthed to be factual rather than fiction. The stuff you find on there is horrible, and even just finding out that one thing on there is real should be enough to burn the entire wrestling industry down, but when you look through it and see which ones can be verified, then you find yourself wanting to take a long, hot shower.
03/28/2024 St. Louis Cardinals (0-0) vs Los Angeles Dodgers (0-0)
Typically, the plan for these posts is to write something while the game is going on, but I wanted to enjoy Opening Day as it unfolded. This year, my best friend Lew and I were both able to get work off during the Dodgers game, so we rushed over to his house while the opening ceremony was still taking place and got in right before Adrian Beltre threw out the first pitch.
It was an interesting game. Some things looked a little wonky, while the top of the order looked downright scary. Lew kept calling Betts, Shohei, and Freeman the All-Star team, which rings true. There won't be a lot of pitchers who will figure out all three of those guys. The majority of them will probably be content with figuring out at least one or two of them. LA is going to score a ton of runs, so I guess the strategy going forward will be trying to outproduce them, which may not be ideal.
I do see teams like AZ or Atlanta giving us fits when it comes to their starting pitching. I don't think anyone should discount those teams, as Arizona has made some upgrades that put them near the top of the pile talent-wise. The thing about baseball is that you can do all the right things and still have an off year. Nothing is guaranteed. Even the Dodgers, with all of the money they spent this past offseason, can lay an egg getting into the playoffs and winning games come the fall.
It did feel good to not have to stress about the team this year. Things have all been put into place so that it would take effort to ruin this season. Having one less thing to stress about makes me feel like things aren't so bad right now.
I have been feeling less anxious over the past few weeks. It's still there, but it doesn't feel so pressing. The worst of it comes during the mornings. I'll wake up and feel it in my chest and on days that I work, I find it hard to peel myself out from between the covers. But I know the bills need to be paid, so I get up and get to it.
Weekends at least are a time to recharge. I only do my writing and editing work on the weekends, so that saves some time to unwind with the kid. Now that baseball season is upon us, that also means that I get to just hang out or get some work done around the house while listening to one on the radio. It's refreshing.
I wish it could always be this way. I wish that things would always be peaceful and that the Dodgers would always look amazing. I wish that every day could be Opening Day. But then, where would the magic come from? Would the good shit feel as good with it always being expected? What would it hide if it always felt like this?
There's a Kurt Vonnegut story called The Euphio Question.3 People discover that there's a radio wave in space that can be harnessed that will bring instant happiness to anyone who hears it. The story is really about what it would mean to be able to turn on happiness like that. The characters awake from their stupor with a host of issues that far exceed what they had when they entered the story. That's because happiness isn't something that can be switched on and off. The reason that you are unhappy generally means that things need to be changed around so that you can be happy. Happiness is nothing more than a byproduct of the circumstances in your life. Nothing more, nothing less. So if every single day was Opening Day, then there would be no World Series. Sure, there would be no heartbreak of your team being bounced from the playoffs, but you also would never get the satisfaction of winning a championship.
So we move on. That's all any of us can do.
Postgame
That's it for today's issue. Tune in next time, when we face the Cards again because baseball is all about repetition.
https://www.angelfire.com/wrestling3/kotdm15/listsleeze.html Read at your own risk!