The rest of the dream

There has been a lot written about this article over the past couple of days. One of the, shall we say, 'livelier' critiques comes from basegirl:

How silly of me, I forgot what a "hero" Sir A-Rod is because he can get his pampered ass out of the house by 7am to go to the gym. Brother, please, if I can manage to get my own self out of the house by 7 - and I sure as hell ain't making $25.2 million a year playing a little boy's game for a living - then spare me the histrionics about your sacrifices.

Kristen has a point - in fact, several points - but what struck me in particular was the "little boy's game". Not just careers but entire lives are built around baseball, a lot of people make a lot of money from taking it very, very seriously, people analyse and theorise about it for money or just for the hell of it, but at the end of the day, this multi-billion dollar business is just a little boy's game, albeit raised to the nth degree.

I know that, for all my desire to be a sophisticated and knowledgeable baseball fan, at heart I'm still that little boy, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. However, one of the advantages of being a little boy at 35 - as opposed to at 10 - is that although you may still have some of the same dreams, you now have the wherewithal to make some of them come true. Baseball Musings last week linked to a blog that Mets fan Eric Brown set up to record the time he spent at a Mets fantasy baseball camp, which includes classic moments such as this:

The ball carried over the head of the leftfielder (okay, the left fielder was former pitcher Buzz Capra and he broke in on the ball when I hit it, or so I’m told) and took a few hops before hitting the fence. I rounded first and second, but put on the brakes instead of trying for three (never make the first or last out at third), safe with a stand up double off John Stearns.

Cutting-edge baseball analysis it is not, but if you're looking for a virtual breath of warm Florida air and a little hero worship, go check it out.