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Out of every sport, baseball is the one I go furthest back with.
 In my formative years, while my peers were ingesting unhealthy amounts of Sesame Street and Power Rangers, I spent my time watching the Braves and Red Sox with my parents (Alright I can’t lie, I watched the Power Rangers too).
I played from the time I was barely old enough to tie my own spikes all the way until my high school graduation. And it’s the sport whose strategy and tactics I understand the best, making me annoying to watch postseason baseball with, as I turn into an armchair Tony LaRussa any time something even semi-exciting happens:
Well if you double-switch this guy with that guy, then the pitcher doesn’t have to bat until the 11th inning, we improve defensively at 2nd base and right field, there won’t be a lefty vs. lefty match-up for eight batters, and…
Meanwhile, whoever I’m watching the game with, gives me the same stare your grandpa does when it’s time for him to go to the proctologist: Aaron, I really don’t care what you think about this double switch. Just shut up so I can enjoy this game!
Yet out of every sport that I do watch, baseball is still the one which I write about the least, and it really isn’t even close.
During football season I spend way too much time thinking about Saturday and Sunday’s matchups, the problem of every team only having one game a week. What’s the weather going to be like? How will Mark Sanchez handle that 3-4 defense? Should I really have wagered my unborn daughter’s college money with Les Miles on the road?
During basketball season it’s the same, as I study player’s body language like Dr. Phil, all the while trying to figure out who I should pick in my NCAA Tournament pool or trade for in my fantasy league.
As for Major League Baseball, well it just doesn’t interest me. As far as I’m concerned, its seven months of the most egregious over-analysis there is anywhere. We sit there and stress one night because Chase Utley went 0-5 with five strikeouts, wondering if “maybe the game has passed him by,” and then watch the following night as he goes 4-5 and instantly becomes a Hall of Famer again.
We have stupid arguments with our friends like, “Seriously, who should we try to trade for as an extra outfielder, Emil Brown or Rocco Baldelli?” Umm, wait a minute…Who cares! It’s our fourth outfielder! But that’s what we do in July. Its 85 degrees and we’re drinking beers at the beach. We just need something to argue about.
Ultimately, none of this stuff matters, because over 162 games stuff happens. A lot of stuff.
Guys go in and out of slumps, get hurt, quit on their teams and get in bar fights on the road. They get promoted and demoted from the minors, traded and are sometimes given their outright release.
But after those same 162 games, everything gets figured out organically. It always does.
We really didn’t need to argue about Brown or Baldelli, 162 games settled the debate on the field. Just like during that same time it was established that the Yankees were the best team in the American League, and Tim Lincecum was the best pitcher in the National League. After seven months of regular season baseball, no stone is left unturned. It can’t be.
Which is why I only watch baseball in passing until the postseason. The baseball regular season is a huge sample size, and no matter what happens in March-September, everything always sorts itself out by October.
Which brings us into the off-season, and mainly the last 10 days, into a time affectionately in baseball circles as the “Hot Stove Season.” During the past week and a half, the following things have happened, completely re-shaping next season in the process:
1. The Yankees, Diamondbacks and Tigers took part in a three-team trade, netting New York a stud in centerfield (Curtis Granderson), Arizona a solid back of the rotation starter (Edwin Jackson) and Detroit a few power arms for its bullpen.
2. The Red Sox came out of no where and signed former Angels pitcher John Lackey to a five-year contract. Lackey was widely regarded as this off-season’s best free agent arm.
3. And in two related trades, the Phillies and Mariners both acquired former Cy Young Award winners with Roy Halladay going to Philadelphia and Cliff Lee to the Mariners. Also, in the process, the Blue Jays acquired several young players, maybe two of which we’ll ever here of again.
And with all that commotion, there are still two major chips that have yet to be cashed in the free agent market. Matt (Boy I sure hope I don’t have to go back to the American League) Holliday and Jason (S**t, I should have signed that extension with Boston in May) Bay, are still looking for, and will soon get, big time contracts.
And through it all, I’ve been sucked back into baseball. I refresh ESPN.com the way Elin Woods refreshes TMZ, constantly looking and hoping for any new piece of breaking news. I see Buster Olney, and hear Tim Kurkjian in my dreams, and more often nightmares. And I’m frantically Googling people I’d never heard of a week ago, looking for any nugget of information on Phillippe Aumont that I can store away for later use (By the way, why don’t we have more Phillippe’s in our sporting lives? Totally underrated name)
And after all that, all the late nights and early mornings, all the Google fascinations, I got to thinking. Mostly strange thoughts as I stared up at my ceiling at night.
And then it hit me: Baseball’s off-season is actually more exciting than the regular season.
Seriously, think about it. During the off-season, not only is there more action in general, but we also have time to examine every decision our favorite team makes with a fine-tooth comb. We get to form clearly defined opinions: The Phillies needed to trade for Roy Halladay. The Red Sox had to spend the money on Lackey instead of another big bat.
Because of the time frame, we come up with definitive conclusions on what our teams do, then hold our ground in disagreement’s with friends. We justify signings with bizarre stats that we don’t really understand like VORP, and analyze our new guy's age like he's applying for an AARP card, arguing whether our new star deserves every dollar and cent he got.
In the regular season, we have no such luxury. Even when a major trade occurs, it happens in the blink of an eye. Our favorite player gets the news, holds a tearful press conference, and 24 hours later, he’s batting in the four hole for his new team. There’s no time to swallow, digest, gather the facts, and form your opinion, when less than a day after your team acquires a new guy, he’s standing right in front of you with no clothes on.
And again, because of a seven month, 162 game regular season, where everything gets washed together and you can’t differentiate one game from the next, there just isn’t as much excitement examining mid-season trades and acquisitions.
Guy’s slump, get banged up, and get worn down by the media and power lefties. It’s not fun to argue in August if Matt Holliday can hit in the American League, because by then we have 100 games of information clearly telling us whether he can or not.
So is the hot stove season more exciting than baseball’s regular season? I’d say so.
Over the next few weeks we’ll hear about 40,000 different scenarios for Bay and Holliday, and when we get sick of those, we’ll hear 40,000 more. When they finally do sign, we’ll wonder stuff like, “Should they have given that extra year to Bay?” and “Will Holliday bat third or fourth come spring?”
And then we’ll form our opinions, stand by them, and threaten to smash a beer bottle over our best friend’s head if he or she doesn’t agree with us. That’s just how it is.
Which is what makes baseball’s off-season so great. All-Stars get traded and sign as free agents, switching teams faster than Jennifer Aniston switches boyfriends.
We all get to become mini-GM’s and pseudo experts, throwing out dumb statements like, “I would have never given Chone Figgins that no trade clause. What were the Mariners thinking?”
Then the regular starts, and we realize we knew nothing at all. Lackey can’t pitch at Fenway Park and Granderson can’t hit lefties.
Everything’s settled and the fun is gone, and we’re left arguing about Emil Brown and Rocco Baldelli again.
Well, at least until next off-season that is.
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in Bifenxia volunteering with the pandas. That mountain road is treacherous!! One night when we were catching the staff bus
into Yaan, we broke down. You can imagine how nervous we were!
I hope Wang Wang and Ugg Sale Funi are doing well, and they have a safe trip.
I can not wait to see them again.