Talkin’ baseball

I’m getting ready to watch the Dodgers, and they just showed Tom Cruise carry the Olympic torch into the stadium, and take a lap with it . . . man, that’s so incredibly cool. I remember when I watched the torch go by in 1984. I was on a street corner in Glendale with my parents, brother, and sister when it went racing past us. I’ll never forget how excited my parents were for us to see it. I think I was more excited about their excitement than I was about the torch going by. And you know what? I bet they were even more excited that we were excited . . . which is something that I never would have understood before I became a parent.
We were really poor in 1984, but my folks wanted to make sure we got to experience the Olympics, so they took us to the only event they could affored: Rowing at Lake Casitas. I remember watching people trading pins, I remember the cool fog that hung inches about the surface of the lake . . . I remember how FAST those boats cut through the water . . . but my clearest memory is how happy my parents were that they’d been able to take us to an event where there was a medal ceremony.
If I got to run around the warning track with the torch, I’d throw the goat the whole way. And when they asked me, “Are you a big baseball fan?” I wouldn’t give the evasive answer he gave (he looked like he wouldn’t know an infield fly if it landed on his head, but that’s cool. Not everyone’s a baseball nerd.) I would say, “Yes. Yes I am. They should raise the mound back up, eliminate the DH, and get rid of Free Agency.”
They’d probably pan the camera off of me when I called Pedro Martinez a little bitch, and went off about what brilliant warriors Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax, and Bob Gibson were. By the time I launched into a rant about how much Ernie Banks ruled, they would have turned off the camera.
Oh! And I wouldn’t leave the field until someone gave me a baseball.
Heh. On second thought, maybe it’s better if I just stay in the stands.