Post by Bethany37 on Aug 28, 2007 14:17:49 GMT -5
Baseball, Tennis, Basketball, talk about anything besides Football and Hockey in here..
I wrote out this post a little while ago to tell ya'll my story from when I first started watching Baseball.
We got our T.V. right in the middle of Baseball season last year. I’d never watched a professional Baseball game before, but I pretty much knew how it was played. The main thing I had to learn was what strikes and balls were. We have 9 videos of Baseball history by Ken Burns; that I’ve only seen bits and parts of, but from what I’d seen; both Josh and I were planning on rooting for the Red Sox. We like their history and Ted Williams. So I watched the Red Sox and rooted for them, but I just didn’t fall in love with them the way I had with other sports. Carolina Panthers? I saw one game and was hooked.. Soccer? I hated the game, but when I watched Germany’s International team during the World Cup last year, I fell in love with them. Another thing was that no one player on the Red Sox really stood out to me. I enjoyed David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Coco Crisp and Jason Varitek; but I didn’t really have a favorite player. And that kind of bored me. Every other team of mine, I have a favorite player; and that just makes the game more exciting. You wait and watch for “your guy” to perform. In Football, it’s Jake Delhomme, in Soccer, it’s Michael Ballack. Also, I found it hard to hate the Yankees. They were fun to watch! I kinda like A-Rod.. But ya’ll did a good job of making it hard for me to really like them, I think Derek Jeter is ugly, I instantly hate them whenever I’m watching them play the Red Sox ) although I could watch them play the very next day against someone else and root for them.) I feel like sticking my tongue out when ever I hear the Yanks mentioned in the same breath as the Red Sox, and I really can not stand Johnny Damon. I’ve never been able to enjoy watching him. I call him Demon and stick my tongue out at him when no one else is looking.. I never even saw him play for the Red Sox, but I guess Shannon taught me how to hate him very well.. It gives me a glimpse of how ya’ll feel about Adam, but I’ll never really understand how you can totally turn against a former player. Nina’s still torn about Adam. About a week ago she told me, “If I meet Adam; I’d give him a hug, ask him for his autograph, and then kick him in the pants!!”
So I watched the Red Sox every time we got one of their games and I tried to watch as many of the other Baseball games we got just to get to know the whole league better.. I love Baseball, but found a lot of the games rather boring and half the time I’d only watch because one of their players was always on Sports Center or something like that and I wanted to finally see them play. So one day the game coming on was the Cardinals @ Indians. It was just another “I haven’t seen these teams play yet, so I guess I gotta watch it” game. So I watched it, and I really enjoyed that game. It wasn’t often that I watched a team play and thought, “I’m going to watch them next time we got one of their games”, but this was one of them. Grady Sizemore got my attention from the Indians.. He’s just an awesome outfielder and batter! And I found the whole Cardinals team interesting. The main thing that really grabbed my attention was the Cardinals pitcher..
I had never realized just how much of Baseball is staring at the pitcher.. It seems like the camera guy is determined to see how far the zoom lens works. I’ve always detested pitching anyway and thought anybody would have to be crazy to want to be a pitcher. Once I started watching Baseball I found the actual pitching interesting, but the pitchers themselves very boring. Every single pitcher has a different wind-up and some of them are just plain boring. You have to watching them do the same exact same thing pitch after pitch. And they were usually either old and fat, or 6’ 5” and skinny as all get out, with ears that stick out. Very dull.
And then I saw Jeffrey Charles Weaver... Not young, but not old either. Not skinny, but not fat, either. There were several things that got my attention. (And yes, the first one was his hair.) I just loved everything about him and the way he pitched.. The way he re-adjusts his hat (it always reminded me of Hannu ) the way he’d wipe his forehead with his sleeve, the way his necklace/chain hangs down when he leans over to pitch, the way it swings when he throws the ball, (I always hate it when it gets stuck under his uniform!) and the most entertaining thing about him, is the way he glares at the batter. And the faces he makes mid-pitch. It’s hilarious! Finally, I had found an interesting pitcher! (I hadn’t known there were any!) The one other thing I had to learn about Baseball was about the pitchers. I never knew that a professional pitcher (almost) never pitches 9 innings straight. And I couldn’t believe just how many pitchers each team had. I was quite disgusted. My favorite player was a pitcher and he as to share his position with a dozen other players! When I went to the Cardinals online rooster, I saw that they had as many pitchers as they did players at every other position!
I didn’t drop the Red Sox for the Cardinals, but I did make sure to watch the (one) other Cardinals game we got during regular season. I don’t remember if Jeff pitched or not, but it was still an enjoyable game and something really funny happened. It was about Albert Pujols.. I couldn’t stand the guy and was sick of hearing about him all the time.. But I guess I was never really paying attention when people talked about him, on it was on that day that I noticed the Cardinals first baseman was..Albert Pujols. My jaw dropped and I turned to Josh and quietly said, “Josh, Albert Pujols plays for the Cardinals..”. He replied, “Uh yeah, I knew that.” Me: “Well I didn’t!”
And then the playoffs came along.. I had no clue who all was even in the playoffs and didn’t take the time to go online and look it up. I just watched the games we got and listened to the commentators yap about who was in and who was out. It was from them that I heard the Red Sox hadn’t made it. I was really disappointed and just randomly watched whatever teams we got. The first team I rooted for was the A’s. I’d never seen them play before, but a friend of mine had been a fan of theirs for years, so I wanted them to win for his sake. I enjoyed the A’s and really like their 3rd baseman, Eric Chavez. Then they got bumped out and we got the Padres series next. Josh, Dad and I all we’d decided to root for the Padres since we’re from San Diego. We’d never claimed any of San Diego’s teams, ‘cause we knew they all stunk, but we thought we’d root for them since it’d been ages since they’d last made the playoffs. I watched like, one game. I’d never seen them play before and the only guy I knew was David Wells. (And that was only ‘cause I remembered reading an article about a fat guy who pitched for the Padres in a Sports Illustrated book.) I found the Padres very boring. And then I heard one of the commentators saying “and the Cardinals are playing the Mets”... My jaw dropped and I shot out of my chair and said, “The Cardinals are in the playoffs?!!” I stood up and said, “That’s it, everyone, I am officially rooting for the Cardinals!! I’m not rooting for the Padres.” Everyone was like, “And why are you rooting for the Cardinals?” and I said, “Because they’re like, one of the only teams in the playoffs that I even seen play before, and on top of that, I like them!” The Cardinals had to get to the World Series Finals just for me to see them play in the Playoffs at all; since our t.v. was getting the American League side of the playoffs. But they made it and boy, I was sick of the Tigers by that time. Although I have to admit they’re good. I didn’t really know if the Cardinals could beat them or not, but I stayed up until 4:00a.m., and watched them cream the Tigers. It was awesome! My favorite sign in the stands was the “Hit It to the Pitcher” one. ;D David Eckstein quickly become another favorite player of mine so I was really happy he got the MVP. Also, I’m now a Pujols fan. The only reason I disliked him was just because no one would shut up about the guy and I’d never seen him do anything impressive. (Probably ‘cause I hadn’t seen him do anything, lol.) But I accepted him when I found out that he played for the team I loved, and I really enjoy watching him now that I've seen him in action.. (I still think he’s a wee bit over-rated, though.)
The game we got was as the season opener this year was a Cardinals game. I was soo excited.. And then I l heard that Jeff was traded to the Seattle Mariners.. I was soo disgusted. Seattle! I can’t stand their Football team, so I don’t want to like their Baseball team! Also, I had never seen them play, and the only guy on their team I had even heard of was Ichiro... We’ve had our T.V. for over a year now, we’ve only gotten one Mariners game. And I didn’t even get to watch it because everyone was watching something else. I am terribly sad about Jeffrey being traded and I am just now able to watch the Cards play without glowering the whole time. But I miss him!! I haven’t seen him play since the World Series!! :’( I thought it was really cool to find out that he had a little brother, Jared. Even after reading about how Jeff was dumped by the Angels for Jared. I just saw my first Angels game a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, Jared wasn’t pitching; but they showed a high-light of him before the game started and they showed him in the bull pen with the other guys, so that was cool. He looks so much like Jeff!! I looked up pictures of the two on Google, and it’s hard to tell them apart. With Jeff being older, he’ll probably retire first, but when that happens I can still follow Jared. Don’t you wish all your favorite players had a little brother that plays the same sport and position, as well as looking like him? ;D (A slightly more reasonably idea then cloning your favorite players!
So the Cardinals are my favorite team now and I've had a blast following them. I still watch the Red Sox whenever we get a game of theirs and root for them. We're getting the Yanks Red Sox game this Thursday and I can't wait!
I wrote out this post a little while ago to tell ya'll my story from when I first started watching Baseball.
We got our T.V. right in the middle of Baseball season last year. I’d never watched a professional Baseball game before, but I pretty much knew how it was played. The main thing I had to learn was what strikes and balls were. We have 9 videos of Baseball history by Ken Burns; that I’ve only seen bits and parts of, but from what I’d seen; both Josh and I were planning on rooting for the Red Sox. We like their history and Ted Williams. So I watched the Red Sox and rooted for them, but I just didn’t fall in love with them the way I had with other sports. Carolina Panthers? I saw one game and was hooked.. Soccer? I hated the game, but when I watched Germany’s International team during the World Cup last year, I fell in love with them. Another thing was that no one player on the Red Sox really stood out to me. I enjoyed David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Coco Crisp and Jason Varitek; but I didn’t really have a favorite player. And that kind of bored me. Every other team of mine, I have a favorite player; and that just makes the game more exciting. You wait and watch for “your guy” to perform. In Football, it’s Jake Delhomme, in Soccer, it’s Michael Ballack. Also, I found it hard to hate the Yankees. They were fun to watch! I kinda like A-Rod.. But ya’ll did a good job of making it hard for me to really like them, I think Derek Jeter is ugly, I instantly hate them whenever I’m watching them play the Red Sox ) although I could watch them play the very next day against someone else and root for them.) I feel like sticking my tongue out when ever I hear the Yanks mentioned in the same breath as the Red Sox, and I really can not stand Johnny Damon. I’ve never been able to enjoy watching him. I call him Demon and stick my tongue out at him when no one else is looking.. I never even saw him play for the Red Sox, but I guess Shannon taught me how to hate him very well.. It gives me a glimpse of how ya’ll feel about Adam, but I’ll never really understand how you can totally turn against a former player. Nina’s still torn about Adam. About a week ago she told me, “If I meet Adam; I’d give him a hug, ask him for his autograph, and then kick him in the pants!!”
So I watched the Red Sox every time we got one of their games and I tried to watch as many of the other Baseball games we got just to get to know the whole league better.. I love Baseball, but found a lot of the games rather boring and half the time I’d only watch because one of their players was always on Sports Center or something like that and I wanted to finally see them play. So one day the game coming on was the Cardinals @ Indians. It was just another “I haven’t seen these teams play yet, so I guess I gotta watch it” game. So I watched it, and I really enjoyed that game. It wasn’t often that I watched a team play and thought, “I’m going to watch them next time we got one of their games”, but this was one of them. Grady Sizemore got my attention from the Indians.. He’s just an awesome outfielder and batter! And I found the whole Cardinals team interesting. The main thing that really grabbed my attention was the Cardinals pitcher..
I had never realized just how much of Baseball is staring at the pitcher.. It seems like the camera guy is determined to see how far the zoom lens works. I’ve always detested pitching anyway and thought anybody would have to be crazy to want to be a pitcher. Once I started watching Baseball I found the actual pitching interesting, but the pitchers themselves very boring. Every single pitcher has a different wind-up and some of them are just plain boring. You have to watching them do the same exact same thing pitch after pitch. And they were usually either old and fat, or 6’ 5” and skinny as all get out, with ears that stick out. Very dull.
And then I saw Jeffrey Charles Weaver... Not young, but not old either. Not skinny, but not fat, either. There were several things that got my attention. (And yes, the first one was his hair.) I just loved everything about him and the way he pitched.. The way he re-adjusts his hat (it always reminded me of Hannu ) the way he’d wipe his forehead with his sleeve, the way his necklace/chain hangs down when he leans over to pitch, the way it swings when he throws the ball, (I always hate it when it gets stuck under his uniform!) and the most entertaining thing about him, is the way he glares at the batter. And the faces he makes mid-pitch. It’s hilarious! Finally, I had found an interesting pitcher! (I hadn’t known there were any!) The one other thing I had to learn about Baseball was about the pitchers. I never knew that a professional pitcher (almost) never pitches 9 innings straight. And I couldn’t believe just how many pitchers each team had. I was quite disgusted. My favorite player was a pitcher and he as to share his position with a dozen other players! When I went to the Cardinals online rooster, I saw that they had as many pitchers as they did players at every other position!
I didn’t drop the Red Sox for the Cardinals, but I did make sure to watch the (one) other Cardinals game we got during regular season. I don’t remember if Jeff pitched or not, but it was still an enjoyable game and something really funny happened. It was about Albert Pujols.. I couldn’t stand the guy and was sick of hearing about him all the time.. But I guess I was never really paying attention when people talked about him, on it was on that day that I noticed the Cardinals first baseman was..Albert Pujols. My jaw dropped and I turned to Josh and quietly said, “Josh, Albert Pujols plays for the Cardinals..”. He replied, “Uh yeah, I knew that.” Me: “Well I didn’t!”
And then the playoffs came along.. I had no clue who all was even in the playoffs and didn’t take the time to go online and look it up. I just watched the games we got and listened to the commentators yap about who was in and who was out. It was from them that I heard the Red Sox hadn’t made it. I was really disappointed and just randomly watched whatever teams we got. The first team I rooted for was the A’s. I’d never seen them play before, but a friend of mine had been a fan of theirs for years, so I wanted them to win for his sake. I enjoyed the A’s and really like their 3rd baseman, Eric Chavez. Then they got bumped out and we got the Padres series next. Josh, Dad and I all we’d decided to root for the Padres since we’re from San Diego. We’d never claimed any of San Diego’s teams, ‘cause we knew they all stunk, but we thought we’d root for them since it’d been ages since they’d last made the playoffs. I watched like, one game. I’d never seen them play before and the only guy I knew was David Wells. (And that was only ‘cause I remembered reading an article about a fat guy who pitched for the Padres in a Sports Illustrated book.) I found the Padres very boring. And then I heard one of the commentators saying “and the Cardinals are playing the Mets”... My jaw dropped and I shot out of my chair and said, “The Cardinals are in the playoffs?!!” I stood up and said, “That’s it, everyone, I am officially rooting for the Cardinals!! I’m not rooting for the Padres.” Everyone was like, “And why are you rooting for the Cardinals?” and I said, “Because they’re like, one of the only teams in the playoffs that I even seen play before, and on top of that, I like them!” The Cardinals had to get to the World Series Finals just for me to see them play in the Playoffs at all; since our t.v. was getting the American League side of the playoffs. But they made it and boy, I was sick of the Tigers by that time. Although I have to admit they’re good. I didn’t really know if the Cardinals could beat them or not, but I stayed up until 4:00a.m., and watched them cream the Tigers. It was awesome! My favorite sign in the stands was the “Hit It to the Pitcher” one. ;D David Eckstein quickly become another favorite player of mine so I was really happy he got the MVP. Also, I’m now a Pujols fan. The only reason I disliked him was just because no one would shut up about the guy and I’d never seen him do anything impressive. (Probably ‘cause I hadn’t seen him do anything, lol.) But I accepted him when I found out that he played for the team I loved, and I really enjoy watching him now that I've seen him in action.. (I still think he’s a wee bit over-rated, though.)
The game we got was as the season opener this year was a Cardinals game. I was soo excited.. And then I l heard that Jeff was traded to the Seattle Mariners.. I was soo disgusted. Seattle! I can’t stand their Football team, so I don’t want to like their Baseball team! Also, I had never seen them play, and the only guy on their team I had even heard of was Ichiro... We’ve had our T.V. for over a year now, we’ve only gotten one Mariners game. And I didn’t even get to watch it because everyone was watching something else. I am terribly sad about Jeffrey being traded and I am just now able to watch the Cards play without glowering the whole time. But I miss him!! I haven’t seen him play since the World Series!! :’( I thought it was really cool to find out that he had a little brother, Jared. Even after reading about how Jeff was dumped by the Angels for Jared. I just saw my first Angels game a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, Jared wasn’t pitching; but they showed a high-light of him before the game started and they showed him in the bull pen with the other guys, so that was cool. He looks so much like Jeff!! I looked up pictures of the two on Google, and it’s hard to tell them apart. With Jeff being older, he’ll probably retire first, but when that happens I can still follow Jared. Don’t you wish all your favorite players had a little brother that plays the same sport and position, as well as looking like him? ;D (A slightly more reasonably idea then cloning your favorite players!
So the Cardinals are my favorite team now and I've had a blast following them. I still watch the Red Sox whenever we get a game of theirs and root for them. We're getting the Yanks Red Sox game this Thursday and I can't wait!