Thursday, March 3, 2011

The Chairman of the Bored

It shouldn't surprise us that Drew at Ghostrunner on First struck a nerve with us this week when he declared his boredom at the fake news coming out of the fake games at Spring Training. We are, after all, part of the Same Guy Baseball Blogging Borg Collective, and try as we might to underscore the differences between our worldviews, we generally wind up in the same place.

And that place, right about now, is bored out of our skull.

That likely makes us sound like the worst ingrate ever, given the long winter and the exciting changes to the on-field and off-field make up of our favorite team. Still, as we listen in to games or check out the stories and tweets coming out of Dunedin, our eyes glaze over like Ban Roll-On dispensers as we wait jam our knives and forks into the real meat of the season.

(A parenthetical note here in lieu of a footnote1: We were so determined to drive away the March blahs yesterday that we spent an hour trying to track down a flight to Tampa so that we could go to the actual Spring Training facility this weekend and smell the sweet odor of the Toronto Nine and hear the crack of the bat and fill our empty soul with real baseball activity. Alas, last minute decisions seem not to be the most effective manner of getting yourself a plane ticket at a reasonable price.)

There's probably two points here: Firstly, we've clearly become too engrossed with all of this Blue Jays tomfoolery. (No fucking kidding.) While podcasters and beat writers and the like took the winter off to write about fantasy football or curling or hockey or the Olympics-One-Glorious-Year-Later-Oh-My-God-Look-At-Melissa-Hollingsworth's-Powerful-Limbs, we spent our fall and winter up to now ears-deep into each story, non-story, whim/notion/idea/what-have-you leading into the coming season. Which is a bit like eating crème brulé three meals per day for three months. Eventually, you need something different.

Secondly, we fear that such a level of engrossment has led us to become exactly the thing that we loathed the most: Jaded. And cynical. And self-important. We've talked to a few bloggers over the years, and while most of us are embarassed to say this outside of that circle, this shit starts to feel like work at a certain point.

We shouldn't feel that way, of course. We started this blog for the love of the game and we've learned so much about the game over the past four seasons, in large part thanks to those of you who've shared your thoughts and a multitude of links through the comments and Twitter. But that knowledge can be stultifying at times, as one begins to be incapable of feeling something as a baseball fan.

This will all pass, certainly. The smell of Rogers Centre turf and the sound of many of us joined together for the season opener will almost certainly reawaken the visceral joy that the game provides us. We'll probably even snap out of this funk by the time Sunday rolls around, and the Jays are actually playing the Pirates right there on the TV. Just bear with us if we seem a little detached from the daily stories of this guy's tweak and that guy's chances and the other one's options.

April 1st can't get here quickly enough.

Hey! Music!


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1. Because footnotes apparently drive some folks batshit crazy. Heyo!

15 comments:

Meredith said...

If this all feels like work, maybe you should start accepting monies from the people who want to give it to you.

Tao of Stieb said...

Actually, I've said no enough times that I don't know if anyone is going to ask again.

I know how ridiculous this all sounds. I'll be in a better mood soon.

The Ack said...

... my excuse being that this has been one of the worst months of my life, and still ongoing.

Nobody put this in the "So you're having kids?" manual.

Be back soon enough though friends!

Gil Fisher said...

It's just hard to get invested in what's happening on the field right now because it means nothing. Yes baseball's back, but there's nothing to glean from it.

Later in ST, if JPA's BB rate and Thames slugging rate are still excellent, they'll be talking points. And if we have a radar gun on Dustin, talk to me.
But right now, nothing means nothing.

MJK said...

how bad would it really be if baseball went to a 2-3 week spring training schedule, with an en extended spring training for prospects and retreads?

these guys train year round, and the season is long enough to work out the kinks. none of it means anything, so let's get to games that count as quickly as possible.

Tao of Stieb said...

A lot of my so-called misery has to do with my impatience. I'm just furiously hitting the fast forward on the remote to get towards the end of Spring Training, where the prospects from 2007 are sent packing, and the prospects of 2013 are scuttled off to their posts across the continent.

This is what happens when you spend your night simming through half a season on MLB 10 The Show.

(That's about the 20th MLB 10 reference I've made in the past few weeks. I'm really angling for a free copy of the new one...WHICH COMES OUT NEXT WEEK!)

Drew said...

Best song ever. Which is weird because it's only my second favourite Weezer song.

Tao of Stieb said...

I'm focusing our joint brain to figure out what you're favorite Weezer song is.

I've narrowed it down to El Scorcho, The Good Life, or Say It Ain't So.

Am I close?

Tao of Stieb said...

Wow. "You're". Holy shit. That's atrocious.

Anonymous said...

way to steal the title from Norm MacDonald.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0WayC7jW0

William J. Tasker said...

Can you take any comfort in the fact that even your bored "crap" is still seriously entertaining to read?

I generally write two to three posts every day, so I know intensely about the "work" feeling. But you are very good at what you do and your "work" is never tiresome even when you feel that way.

Anonymous said...

Nice to see that even though they didn't bring much to the table hitting-wise last year, Escobar and Hill still contributed...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/joe_sheehan/03/03/dp.combos/index.html?eref=sihp

Tao of Stieb said...

I actually stole the title from an Iggy Pop song. But thanks for sharing the link...Carrot Top jokes are always topical.

G Man said...

Try Sunwing. It was $450 for Mar 21 to 25 last time I checked.

Chad said...

LOL, I can't believe anonymous thought that was the source. Thanks, Anonymous, I like to laugh.