If I were any happier I’d be Twins
Give me some peanuts and cracker jacks….
So baseball isnt normally my thing. I know its the great american pastime and all…
Don’t get me wrong, I dont dislike it. I played Softball in highschool, and still watch my brothers play in leagues in the summer. I understand the game, and I like the game. I would even go so far to say I love the game when people I know are playing. But I have never really gotten into professional baseball.
It isnt as fast paced as my favorite sport, hockey. It isnt as exciting as my second favorite sport, football. They score way less than my third favorite sport, basketball.
Everything in baseball has always just seemed less colorful to me. The players arent as exciting. No one tackles eachother. Fights almost never break out. What kind of man sport involves almost no man to man contact at all?
Plus I just never had a team I loved. Its hard to get passionate about a sport you have no vested interest in. “Who won? Who cares.” has always been my motto in baseball.
But this year something is changing.
This year an underdog emerged. And I LOVE underdogs. Any time I am watching a game where I dont care who wins or loses (like most superbowls) I always root for the team everyone thinks is going to lose. Because someone has to.
And maybe I have watched too many Hollywood movies like Rudy and Miracle but I love a comeback and a happy ending. I have been known to cry at the end of games.
I am sucker for the underdog, and I found my underdog in baseball.
The twins were trailing in the Central division by as many as 12 1/2 games back in May, and everyone thought their season was all but over. It should have been over. But somehow they began to rally from behind, and won 21 of their next 23 games.
I dont know enough about the season to tell you how it happened… but it did. And everyone noticed, because people like to cheer for the Comeback Kid. The underdog. The dome, which is 5 blocks from my house, was half full at the beginning of the season and is sold out now. And there is literally parties in the streets celebrating the Twins victory and Tigers loss this weekend.
And the funny thing is I started to care. I started to watch. I started to get excited. I started to understand why people love this sport.
How far will the streak go… can the Twins take it all the way to the World series? I have no idea… but I know I have been converted, and I will be cheering them along the way.
