Opening of Baseball Season Takes Me Back to the Baseball Zone

Los Angeles Dodgers Yasiel Puig (66) in the doghouse, which means sitting on the benchMandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

I’ve got the San Francisco Giants/Los Angeles Dodgers’ game on the tube, aroundthefoghorn.com dialed in on my Mac, a glass jug of chilled spring water at my elbow, and that deep, satisfying feeling I get when I’m back in the zone: the baseball zone, that is.  Someone I know just made the comment, “See you in November,” with the oh-so-casual confidence of a fan who follows a winner and expects to be thusly occupied through the end of October.

Being in the zone means that when I come down off the mountain and get my hands on a Sporting Green, I have to go through it at least three times, before I feel as though I have gleaned everything there is to be found.  Being in the zone means having box-scores to examine, beat writers to check in on, and a wealth of new opportunities with the internet.  Best of all, being in the zone means a baseball game just about every day of the week.

I like to go to Giants’ opponents’ home-town sports web-sites, and see what kind of trash they’re talking about the Giants.  I like to get different perspectives from different parts of the country, but most of all I like to sit around and talk Giants’ baseball with my homies.  I’m not a boozer, though I do enjoy the occasional shot of Jamison, strictly for medicinal purposes, you understand, but I do drink vast quantities of ice water.  It come from the spring and is as sweet as the nectar from the gods.

As enjoyable as the aura of Spring Training is, there is still the knowledge that it’s all for show and that it will all dissipate, the minute the real season opens.  For the Giants it meant the sixth consecutive time we have opened on the road, a minuscule price to pay for playing on the West Coast.  It also meant a come-from-behind victory in Arizona that still makes me glow just thinking about it.

Madison Bumgarner Opening Day – Photo courtesy of @SFGiants on Twitter.

What’s more, I am as anxious for the game to start today, as I have been each day, because there are more questions being answered, more pieces of the puzzle falling into place, and so many teams and players to monitor and keep track of.  It’s a full-time job, and one for which I am paid quite handsomely, in that aforementioned satisfying manner.

Football comes but once a week, but baseball’s here every day.  The ritual of comparing standings, stats and stars is one that keeps me occupied in a most satisfying manner.  There’s that word “satisfying” again;  it seems to come up a lot these days, especially when I contemplate the way in which the Giants exploded in the first two innings of yesterday’s Dodgers/Giants game, scoring eight runs and sending an L.A. Opening Day crowd home disappointed.

The Rolling Stones sang about not being able to get any satisfaction.  Maybe they should have become Giants’ fans.

Mar 9, 2014; Glendale, AZ, USA; San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Hicks (14) rounds the bases after he hits a two run home run in the second inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Camelback Ranch. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports