Monday, May 03, 2010
Random thoughts...
I went out for my first day at the batting cage on Saturday and realized how excited I am about my upcoming season. While there, I thought of a couple of things. First, are pro players as excited as I am as the new season starts? I know that when you get paid for something, the internal motivation to keep playing and have fun drops dramatically (I have a degree in Psych, we studied it, if you need an example, look at Alex Rios), but is there still that childish fun for the players when the season starts?
I also really understood why spring training is so long. If my mediocre skills will take quite a few swings of the bat and some time throwing and catching, I can't imagine how long it would take an elite athlete to shake of the rust after a winter of not playing.
After watching a game at the Rogers Dome, and quite a few on tv, it occurred to me about how much better it is being at the game. I'm not a loud fan, I cheer when something good happens but I'm not a constantly cheering till my voice is hoarse guy. I'd be out of place at a soccer match. Either way, the full view of the field is much more important to me than the close up view of the pitch or seeing how close the play at first was. I love watching the movements of the players on the field. Seeing the catcher charge down the first baseline on a routine ground ball to the infield always makes me happy because I know that the team is doing the things that they should be doing to make sure that any errors are limited in their damage.
It's often said that people need entertainment in order to distract them from the things in their life that stress them out. With a lot of the garbage that is going on in the world these days, I love that the season has started again (as well as two playoffs (three if you include NLL...a Toronto team made the playoffs!!!!) and a new TFC season), just so we can all go relax, have a beer and a pretzel and watch the game. To me, regardless of the final score, that is the goal. ¶ posted by Matthew Graf at 9:19 AM
I also really understood why spring training is so long. If my mediocre skills will take quite a few swings of the bat and some time throwing and catching, I can't imagine how long it would take an elite athlete to shake of the rust after a winter of not playing.
After watching a game at the Rogers Dome, and quite a few on tv, it occurred to me about how much better it is being at the game. I'm not a loud fan, I cheer when something good happens but I'm not a constantly cheering till my voice is hoarse guy. I'd be out of place at a soccer match. Either way, the full view of the field is much more important to me than the close up view of the pitch or seeing how close the play at first was. I love watching the movements of the players on the field. Seeing the catcher charge down the first baseline on a routine ground ball to the infield always makes me happy because I know that the team is doing the things that they should be doing to make sure that any errors are limited in their damage.
It's often said that people need entertainment in order to distract them from the things in their life that stress them out. With a lot of the garbage that is going on in the world these days, I love that the season has started again (as well as two playoffs (three if you include NLL...a Toronto team made the playoffs!!!!) and a new TFC season), just so we can all go relax, have a beer and a pretzel and watch the game. To me, regardless of the final score, that is the goal. ¶ posted by Matthew Graf at 9:19 AM
