Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Artificial Baseball

After seeing Scotty on the front page of Yahoo this morning, how far behind could the World Poker Tour be in sewing up a gig with Fox and/or NBC? Poker is getting to be mainstream and really not that different from your garden variety game show, so what's to say we couldn't have Helmuth ranting over that Queen-Nine offsuit after Agent Gibbs solves another mysterious death involving two Marines and a midnight shopper at Wal-Mart?

Mart was always the first to the ballpark, eager to play or chat with any person within a earshot. Granted with his 60-ish age the ball didn't travel as far off the bat nor did his legs allow for an infield single any longer, but the man's heart for coming out and playing hard finally overcame the silent jokes. Seeing him on the ground last night without any muscle coordination, just a faint breath after hitting the hard-packed infield head first left a little void. And as the ambulance took him to North Memorial with his son packing up the gear left behind, perhaps never to be used again, I'm hoping there will be stories of wooden bats and everyone running out ground balls next Monday.

Tonight's Twins vs. Tiggers tilt will be attended by yours truly, along with my son for his first taste of major league ball in artificial air. Viewing a Twins game in the Metrodome seems like watching roller hockey outdoors, but to many this is the way its always been so watching a ball hit a speaker and come back into play doesn't seem unnatural to fans of the blue and red. The new ballpark can't get here soon enough for some great early May games in the snow!

No comments: