A Child's Game

When people first meet me, they are often led to the conclusion that my favorite sport is football.  During the fall, I eat, sleep and breathe college football and my emotions for the next weeks are directly impacted by the results of the BYU Cougars football game the previous weekend.  I can also throw and catch a football like nobody's business and at 6'2" and a hair over 250 lbs, I look the part.

However, football is not the sport with which I feel the strongest connection, though it's a close second.  That distinction belongs to the quintessential American child's game, baseball.  Though most people find it boring and there's something of a lack of athletic prowess to the game, it's captivated my heart since I was very young.

I still remember the first professional baseball game that I ever went to.  Our neighbors had come across several tickets to a game between the Colorado Rockies and the visiting Kansas City Royals.  They weren't going to be able to go, so they gave them to my dad, who accepted and took me down to downtown Denver to see the game.  I don't remember many of the circumstances of the game, but I remember that I got to see Larry Walker and that the Rockies won 13-3.  Clearly they hit well and pitched decently... which is pretty much their M.O. most of the time.  Since then, I've been to many more games and have seen the Rockies win the majority of them.

Many of my fondest birthday memories were in Coors Field watching the Rockies take on various opponents.  I've been to numerous games either on my birthday or in close temporal proximity to it.  Last year, my mom even spotted me and one of my best friends tickets to the MLB All Star game in Arizona, which was the day after my birthday.  I feel fairly confident that this will remain one of my most cherished birthday memories throughout my life. Let's just say it'll take a lot to unseat it from the #1 slot.

One of the biggest reasons I like baseball more than any other sport is that I played it for several years.  I still remember Mrs. McGriff handing out flyers for Northern Lights Little League to her 3rd grade class.  It took a little bit of persuasion to get my mother on board, but she eventually came around.  Sometimes I played better than others... and I was in right field more than a few times, but I see the whole as a positive experience.

Though I'm a big fan of football, hockey, rugby, and lacrosse, there will always be an extra-special place in my heart for the sport of baseball.  I love watching the game and I probably love playing it even more. It captivated me when I was young and it will continue to captivate me well into the future. 

Go Rockies!  :)