Celebrating my birthday always marks the start of the baseball season for me. I hear you saying “Huh?” Well, here is how my Ridge boy reasoning goes for me to get from birthday to baseball.
Being the self centered kind of guy that I am, February very quickly goes downhill for me after I celebrate my birthday. As I’ve told you before, other than my birthday being in it, February is my least favorite month. I will look forward to celebrating my birthday day, but after that, I hate the rest of February. Don McLean’s “February made me shiver” line always runs thru my mind. Just get this bad boy over with.
Thus, I need mental incentives and positive things to keep me up and my usual optimistic self. Thinking about and talking about baseball makes me feel better. Always has, always will.
Every year around the middle of Febraury MLB’s spring training commences in Florida (Grapefruit League) and Arizona (Cactus League) (click here.) This is the Florida calendar depicting the O’s starting today and the Nationals tomorrow.
At one point in my life my retirement goal and plan was to stay in Maryland thru my birthday and then head to Florida with the Orioles to spend spring training there with them. When in late May, early April, they broke for the start of their baseball season, I would head back to the Mother County.
But as you know, plans and things change over time such that I now pursue a mental spring training: physically I’m here, but psychologically I’m there.
And since I’m talking baseball, here’s a trivia question for you – what player(s) hold the record for most seasons played with one team? Check this out and stay with it to the final two entries:
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| https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/leaders_most_seasons.shtml |
I tried watching the Grammys the other night, but fell asleep before this lady was awarded Album of the Year for her Golden Hour album. The song below is from one of her earlier albums. It generated some controversy among country music radio stations when many of them wouldn’t play it because of her singing about kissing girls, smoking dope and not going to church. Hell, I’m good with all that!