Hit by a Pitch

Usually when I sit down to write a post, which is increasingly rare these days I know, unless it’s a super-short update about what Jake Plummer is doing today or where Julius Hodge is playing, I really, really make an effort to write something that is thoughtful, interesting, accurate, and reasonably well written. As a professional editor by day, I am ridiculously hard on writing, all the time (honestly, I wish I could turn off the “editor” part of my brain sometimes, because it makes it hard to enjoy most writing). So it’s only natural that I’m ridiculously hard on my own writing. This is why I haven’t yet written the novel that’s been floating around in my head for YEARS — my expectations of it are so high that anything, even a stupid stream-of-consciousness pretend first draft is soooo awful I can’t even live with myself for having written it and I get really embarrassed for myself even though nobody else will ever see it and then I just go have some beer and forget about it entirely, until I’m lying in bed trying to go to sleep, which usually takes a while and is the time that, without fail, every single day, I inhabit the world of my novel that I hope will exist someday.

So this is also why, now that I’m not taking Adderall every day, I have a hard time posting here. It’s really hard for me to organize my thoughts enough to write something coherent and thoughtful, interesting, accurate, and reasonably well written. Because that’s not how my mind, in its natural state, actually works. And when I’m not on Adderall, I’d rather sit on the couch and talk shit about eyeglasses, road trips, and the next tattoo I want to get than actually look shit up on the internet and write a post.

But fuck it all. This is my stupid blog, and I guess I can do what I want. So here is an unmedicated, buzzed off of two beers (I’ve been seriously cutting back lately, so this is a pretty good buzz), unresearched and spur-of-the-moment shitty post.

I want to talk about Jermaine Dye. If you’re a White Sox fan, you love Jermaine Dye. If you’re not a White Sox fan but you’re a fan of MLB in general or some other team, you probably don’t even know who Jermaine Dye is, do you? Well, that’s kind of disgraceful, because Jermaine Dye is one of the best players in MLB today. He was up for that last-minute All-Star spot, which he lost to Evan Longoria (WTF?). I went on that stupid website and voted for Jermaine Dye (even though you had to uncheck the “get updates from monster.com” thing and put in the stupid CAPTCHA code every. single. time) early and often. And I’m from Chicago, so I know about voting early and often. Because who in the hell is Evan Longoria (right now, as we speak, someone in Tampa is writing a blog post about how Evan Longoria is really awesome and MLB fans who don’t know about him are a disgrace and is it okay for me to say right now that I’m really jealous of the devil ray petting zoo tank thing they have at their field because that is the shit)? Jermaine Dye deserved to be on the All Star team. He deserved it more than the 900 Yankees and Red Sox who made it and who piss me off because there are too many Yankees and Red Sox and Cubs fans and the White Sox will never get that much love.

Here’s the thing. You know how every day except Sunday, you get your mail? And every day, unless you don’t pay your bill, your home has electricity and heat and MLB Extra Innings and shit like that? Do you ever really think about the people who make that all possible? Do you think about the guys who put in the cable wires or the people connecting your iPhone to shit or the mailman? And I know that there already was a mailman — Karl Malone, yada yada I always thought he was cool but now he lives in the boonies and like hunts and shit, which I totally don’t approve of but that’s really beside the point. Anyway, Jermaine Dye is the invisible guy who gets everything done and keeps the White Sox running. He doesn’t get all the glory. The glory is reserved for people like my future husband Carlos Quentin or the most hated man in MLB AJ Pierzinski or, well, Ozzie Guillen because let’s face it not many White Sox players get any glory at all.

So anyway, this is my long and ADD-related way of saying that Jermaine Dye is the mailman. He always delivers. Rain or sleet or what-the-fuck ever, you can rely on him to make a crazy-ass catch like he did this afternoon or get a big hit or do whatever you need so your team and your city can function like normal. The guys who keep you functioning like normal don’t get that much credit or recognition from anybody. But maybe they should.

It looks like 2008 will be the return of the Enver Nuggets, the team with no D. The Nuggets traded Marcus Camby to the Los Angeles Clippers for a future second-round draft pick.

This is the stupidest move, ever. If I had to make a top-10 stupid trades list, this would be up there. (Hey, maybe I’ll do that some day, when I’m less pissed off than I am right now.)

Maybe somebody in the front office is allergic to rebounding. First they got rid of Reggie Evans — yeah, I know, my Iowa love for him aside, he’s not all that or anything. Then they get rid of Camby. Who in the hell is going to rebound now? How in the hell are they going to play their fast-paced, hustle game without anybody pounding the boards? Shit, I don’t want to sound like John Madden, but you can’t run with the ball if you don’t have the ball. Who in the hell is going to get the ball?

I know I love Marcus Camby more than I should, probably, but he was the team’s defense. Without him, they’re going to suck even more than they already did. I’ve said it before, but I think he was a strong, stabilizing force in the locker room and probably the closest thing to a leader this sorry team had.

And let me just go on the record right now — if they had to make a blue-light special move for salary cap space, I’d rather they moved Carmelo Anthony. Don’t get me wrong — I don’t hate Melo, and I don’t blame him for the lame-ass season we ended up with last year. However, let’s face it, he’s not getting any better and he’s one fuck up away from being completely untouchable. One more DUI charge, “it’s not my backpack” incident, or misguided video, and no team in the world will trade for him. If he keeps stagnating, playing lazy, and being a generally selfish player, we’ll be stuck with him.

Well. I thought a little bitching would make me feel better, but it really didn’t.

I just heard that Eduardo Najera signed with the Nets.

If you ask me, this is terrible news. He’s the one guy the Nuggets could always count on to come off the bench and BRING IT. His hustle and energy made him more valuable to the team than his numbers would suggest. I have no idea how the Nuggets will replace that.

I wish him well in New Jersey and hope the fans there appreciate him.

Well, it’s starting again. The fall catalogs have arrived, showing plaid wool skirts that I might’ve worn back when I listened to the Jesus and Mary Chain and big clunky Frye boots. And the sports people are starting to talk about football.

Granted, the local radio guys never really stopped talking about football. I guess that’s what happens when your local baseball team sucks ass, your local basketball team was a big disappointment, and there’s not much else to talk about. I’ve heard more about the Broncos in the last month than I care to hear about, well, ever. (I officially broke up with the Broncos this summer — we’ll get some ice cream and I’ll tell you all about it soon.) But now it’s kind of everywhere. People are talking about Brett Favre and fantasy football and shit, I’m just not ready for that. People, it’s summer! It’s baseball time!

As a flaky person with ADD, I’m always doing shit and thinking about 100 other things. It’s really hard for me to (and this sounds like total new-agey bullshit and for that, I apologize) um, “be in the moment.” But for some reason, I can be in the moment with sports. Totally and completely. It’s kind of like running, you know? When you’re running, you might be listening to your iPod and watching a game with the closed captioning on, but you’re really just running. There’s not a whole lot of room in your head for anything else — or at least that’s how it is for me, because let’s face it, I’m not all that good at running, but I do it because it’s hard.

That’s how it is with me and sports. At any point, the sport that is in season is my favorite sport ever. When it’s summer, I’m watching baseball. I’m not thinking about the upcoming football season, or about what the Nuggets might do (although I do sometimes hope they don’t trade Marcus Camby). Baseball is my boyfriend and I’m not thinking about other sports. Baseball and I spend almost every evening together and I get pissed on Saturdays when that stupid exclusive Fox deal keeps my team away from me. I go to Coors Field at least three or four times a month and drink beer and yell and get in trouble for giving kids water guns that they use to squirt unsuspecting strangers, some of whom aren’t all that cool.

It’s the height of summer right now, and nothing is on my sports mind except baseball. This even is a good summer, if you can believe that. Sure, my Rockies suck, but that’s more than made up for by the fact that my White Sox are in first place. I’m dreaming about a White Sox/Cubs World Series (hoping for it but dreading it, too).

Fall is for sweaters and chili and skinny scarves and football and pumpkins, mornings with fresh coffee setting my lineup and waiting for the 11:00 kickoff. Winter is my crappy fantasy team, a nice porter or stout, and running from the Auraria Campus parking lot to the Pepsi Center because we just missed tipoff and is for football and basketball. Spring is basketball and then baseball.

But summer belongs to baseball alone. I love baseball so much there’s not room for anticipation of what’s to come next. Now, I love watching the tiny Alexei Ramirez hit balls out of the park, listening to Hawk Harrelson talk his magic, riding my bike to Coors Field and getting nachos and a Snake Dog IPA at Blake Street after the game before riding home to the ‘hood (and lately hoping nobody gets shot).

So I guess I’ll just be late for the party. I don’t want to think about Randy Moss just yet. He’ll still be there when I need to put my fantasy team together the night before the NFL season starts. For now, I just want to hang out with Carlos Quentin.

Hey, just as I was writing that, he hit a home run. See? Summer is for baseball.