Better than a Good Day Anywhere Else

I’m a baseball fan, particularly of the Minnesota Twins. I’m not a baseball analyst or any kind of expert. Just a fan.

But apparently I’m a fan who’d like to share a few of her thoughts about the Twins with more people than just her baseball-loving friends and coworkers. The first thoughts I’ll be sharing are about our intro topic, the dreaded offseason.

When the offseason first arrives, it’s nice to catch my breath, especially after a whirlwind like what was the last week or so of the Twins’ 2009 season. And sure, when I’m ready to put the season behind me there are plenty of distractions that attempt to fill the void, like football or Christmas or the Winter Olympics, but as much as I might enjoy them at the time, they’re just not the same as sitting at the ballpark with a Dome Dog (*sigh*) in one hand and my scoring notebook in the other (this is not actually a feat I can accomplish — how can I hold a pencil and napkin too?), watching nine blessed innings of my favorite baseball team.

I always have big plans for the offseason because I have a lot of things I still want to learn (remember that part about how I’m not an expert?). Such as, how is it other people I watch games with seem to have some sort of innate ability to be able to tell what type if pitch was just thrown? How have I not picked that up by now? How does everyone but me remember minute details about seemingly every single game that’s ever been played? Sometimes I think that maybe if I can just watch enough replays during the offseason I might be able to have more intelligent baseball discussions, but I always end up too busy to try the experiment.

The one good thing about the offseason is that we have something to look forward to when the long, dark winter is over. Because as the saying goes, a bad day at the ballpark is better than a good day anywhere else. Especially when stuff like in the following photo happens (and pay no mind to the uniform; he’ll always be a Twin to me).