Braving the Long Cold Winter

The Atlanta Braves are the World Series Champions for 2021. I'm glad of that, not the least reason why because I believe it poetic justice. Major League baseball tried to punish Georgia by moving the All Star game to Colorado. Now it must endure the championship parade and accolades of Atlanta getting the last laugh. I don't believe in karma but if I did, I would argue this is it.

Now, along with Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby, I stare out the window and wait for spring, when baseball returns. Sorry, football, and although I do still pay you some attention, I soured on the NFL (and even the college game) years ago. You're simply too brutal, and far too full of yourselves (among other things, which I will let hang for today). I see some of your obnoxious attitude creeping into baseball and I don't like it. Sports should be sportsmanlike, with sportsmanship rather than ego stroking. People complain about taunting penalties as they are? Hell, they ain't called enough.

So I leave you now with the famous lines of former Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giomatti:

“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

Amen to that. 102 days, and counting, until pitchers and catchers report.