Baseball and Vacation
Posted by verywellthen on May 9, 2009
I just got back from a week rafting in the Grand Canyon. It’s a month into the baseball season, and I didn’t think of baseball at all.*
*Okay. I did once. My river guide explained that, according to the book “Death in the Grand Canyon” everyone who dies of dehydration in the Grand Canyon has been found with water still in their canteen/water bottle. They were saving the last gulps. I thought of Gardy saving Joe Nathan, just in case of a save situation.
At the bottom of the Grand Canyon it’s hard to follow baseball. If I could have forced my attention away from the canyonscape, I had no internet. There is no cell coverage. Not even a newspaper with scores. Short of satellite radio, I couldn’t have received any updates. (Satellite radio. Damn. Why didn’t I think of that before I left).
As a kid, the first thing I did when my family returned from vacation was to go through the stacked up and yellowed newspapers of the last week to analyze every Twins box score. I’d go sequentially from the first day we left town and get caught up. For some reason, I especially remember coming home from an August vacation and tracking a hot-hitting rookie, Kent Hrbek. If you’re still anxiously tracking a team in August of a 102 loss campaign, you’ve established fan for life credentials.
When I got back from the Grand Canyon, I did what I’ve done in recent years if I missed a game or two. I clicked through the box scores and game logs on ESPN or MLB.com.
But I didn’t analyze the game logs too closely. The Twins aren’t playing inspiring baseball right now. And though I love baseball, it somewhat pales in the grandeur of the sandstones and limestones and the cool blue Colorado River.
When the buzz of exciting travel wears off, I hope the Twins are back to playing exciting baseball.
