Thursday, April 21, 2005

One More Reason...

... To Enjoy Reading Naked Villainy

Maximum Leader is a Baseball Fan, and what's more, a National League fan, for the right reasons.

That's right, I'm one of THOSE Baseball fans. Capital B. The ones who believe that Baseball should be played on grass, with wooden bats, as God intended, who believe that the Designated Hitter is an affront to all that is pure and right and good, who believe that The Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is the closest America comes to a Pantheon on Olympus, that Baseball fields are our national temples and arenas and hippodromes and circuses, that a man wielding a Louisville slugger on a summers afternoon should be filmed from below, as if he were taller than mortal men, that all men of good will hold their breaths for just a split second as the pill fires from the pitcher's hand, who loves terms like "High heat", who believes the greatest epic poem ever was "Casey at the Bat", whose liturgy includes "Tinker to Evers to Chance" and "Take Me out to the Ball Game" and "Hey batter batter". Baseball, in short, is my second religion.

One bit of advice for ML: Do not let a team's lack of on field success prevent you from supporting them. I am a lifelong fan of the San Diego Padres, aka the Cubs of the West. A true baseball fan bleeds his team's colors. Just ask yourBrother-in-Law the Bosox fan where that can eventually get you. That one moment of glory is worth the price of a lifetime of heartache.