and so it begins

although it might not be evident to 99.99% of people living in this country (or continent), today is one of the greatest days of the year, also known as Opening Day. To put it in layman's terms, tis the first day of the baseball season, and thus all seems right in the world. Well, maybe not, but at least us baseball fans get to look forward to a few months of the real beautiful game.

I first got into the sport when I spent a few weeks in Massachussets back in the mid-90s. I was staying at a friend's who was pretty good at the sport, and this being summer, he played a game with his various teams almost every other day. I wasn't very familiar with it at first, but I quickly became enamored with the many facets of it, from the on-the-field action to the surrounding setting. Baseball is a very relaxed sport, to say the least, sure there's action on the field, but there's also a strong social aspect to it, much more so than any other sport I've witnessed. Indeed going to a game with friends is to me not simply about going to watch athletes throw and hit a ball around. It's also very much about just hanging out with said friends, or talking with seat-neighbors about anything from the pitcher's motion to the best itinerary to go back to Albany, and just basically enjoying being outdoors for a few hours. Like most baseball fans my love for the sport can border on geekiness (please remind me to never tell you about my fantasy baseball team), but I dig that it's not just about that.

Of course living in Europe isn't really conducive to sharing this love of baseball. There's fans here and there (mostly expats), but as far as I know, my brother's the only other Met fan I've ever met in Paris. Thankfully the MLB (baseball league organization) is very good at providing access to the games online, so for the past 3-4 years I've been enjoying as many games as I can of my team and others from the comfort of my home. Since many games are played during the day, the time-difference doesn't affect me as much as it does for other sports like basketball (for instance tonight's college basketball finals start at 2:00am here. ugh). And although I've come to enjoy soccer a lot since moving to France ten years ago, I'm glad I can still enjoy this personal pleasure of mine, for a few hours at a time.