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Love baseball…or not (you terrorist.)
To me, springtime means flowers blooming, birds chirping, and spring-cleaning. Sorry, let me cut the crap and start over (1). To me, springtime means baseball and baseball only (2). Now you might have started reading just these first two sentences and thought, “Hey Mike, is your article about baseball? I know NOTHING about baseball and to tell you the truth I think I want you to teach me about flowers, birds, and cleaning instead. Also, I am a beautiful girl who is single and likes guys who write topical humor columns every week for who knows, who is actually reading but you write it anyways.”
(1) Cause come on, I’m a MAN and I write about MANLY things. (IE American Idol. A Patriotic Primer)
(2) Oh and my Golden State Warriors having another losing season. That one is basketball, not baseball. Stay with me here people.
My answer to this is two-fold. One, yes, I’m talking about baseball, and two come on girl, let me get your numba.
The thing though, is that baseball is more than just, “see ball, hit ball” and rather much more complicated. This Guide though isn’t intended to teach you the ins and outs of baseball (3), but rather to give you just enough information to sound coherent amidst talks of baseball.
(3) Check out my fellow Cal Poly Journalist Ryan Quintana for that kind of sports info.
The first point you can make in any baseball conversation is concerning a problem BIGGER (4) than Owen Wilson’s nose, yet it causes something smaller than Michael Jackson’s nose (5). Of course, as you may nose, I mean know, I’m talking the usage of, and side effects of, steroids.
(4) That’s right! Bigger!
(5) That’s right! Smaller!
So, you’re at a family function where there are burgers and hot dogs grilling, the sound of beverage cans beings popped open, and just an all around good, happy, American time. A “Barbecue” if you will.
Everything is going well, until your grandpa pulls you over and starts talking about the glory days of baseball. All of a sudden, you start panicking. You love your grandpa, but how the hell will you connect with him?
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. We’re going to get through this together.
All you have to do, is throw the simple line of, “Yeah, it’s really sad that all players are using steroids now grandpa.”
Now be warned, you have just opened the floodgates of conversation. In fact, your grandpa is probably pissed off at this point (6) but that’s ok. As he goes on to talk about how he remembers the game being, “as pure as the first time he met your grandmother,” while it’s disgusting, he will enjoy the fact that you showed time to talk about baseball even a bit.
(6) Maybe the only kind of pissing he’s done in weeks, but that’s a whole other subject.
Truth though, and without me being too preachy or anything, whether you have a favorite team, or can merely just name one or two teams, it is guaranteed that any baseball organization you can name has (or had) guys taking steroids. Time to move on.
You might hear your friends say stuff like, “No doubt about it, the (insert favorite team) are going to win it all this year.”
When they say this, simply tell them, “Oh come on, who picked the PHILLIES and RAYS to even make it to the World Series.” If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s ok (7). Just by saying that, you really won’t get any sort of coherent response back, likely crushing his or her hopes for the upcoming baseball season.
(7) The Tampa Bay Rays lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series last year. Nobody saw that coming. Not even you Mr. Baseball Genius.
The reality of it is that baseball is less predictable than who will be voted off next in “Dancing with Stars.”(8)
(8) See? Look I just want us to relate to the same things you know?
Lastly, if someone brings up baseball, ask him how his fantasy baseball team is doing. Every baseball fan has a fantasy baseball team, and every baseball fan loves to talk about his team. Truth is, all you have to do is ask this question, then nod and smile through the explanation that you are about to receive.
“Well, Josh Hamilton is a little cold but he’s going to turn things around,” He’ll say. “I mean my pitching is SOLID and once my bats get going I’ll be unstoppable.” You don’t have to know what any of this means, but if you sit back and sacrifice a bit of time and incoherence, you’ll be appreciated.
If you REALLY want to impress, you can ask if he has porn loving Hideki Matsui or hooker loving Alex Rodriguez on his team. These are two facts that even HE might not know, as he’s too busy geeking out over stats rather than paying attention to these guys in real life. (9)
(9) Hideki Matsui and porn. Alex Rodriguez and hookers. Porn and hookers. Porn and hookers. Porn and hoo…hey wait did I mention I was single ladies?
Well that does it for another Guide to Life. As always, I hope you learned something.
Love, peace and see you next week.
