For the baseball fan, November always begins the cold season. Not just in terms of temperature but also in the frozen wasteland of time. Day after day, the calendar marks the long, slow stretch of nothing between the World Series and Opening Day. For 162 games, stretching over six months of the year, we gave three to four hours of our time, living and dying on each pitch, each slow chopper, each base hit and RBI (or, if you’re reading this, more likely you were agonizing over each WAR and FIP and TOOTBLAN).
This is going to be our year
Here is why you are hopeful. Here is why good things will happen.
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Bill Hanstock is a writer, author and Emmy Award-winning producer. He began writing for SB Nation in 2011.
After so many hundreds of hours of baseball each year, we’re still never quite prepared for the sudden and absolute absence of baseball in our lives. The removal of its presence, a formidable cliff of nothingness that seems impossible to scale until the bunting is once again draped over the low walls, running up each baseline come springtime. We try and make-do with the second half of the NFL season, the Super Bowl, March Madness, the NBA Playoffs, the Stanley Cup and that GIF of the cat bursting through the snowbank. But it’s never quite enough.
Still, though, we baseball fans are tough. Formidable. Hearty. We survived Dane Cook insisting there’s only one Ock-TOE-bur every two minutes. We vanquished Bruce Springsteen’s caterwauling about that train. We were made intimately aware that it was written in the stars, a million miles away. We kept our wits about us while Fall Out Boy lit approximately twelve zillion mups. We persevered, because we love baseball.
As hard as it can be at times to slowly (or perhaps not so slowly, in the case of half a dozen or more fan bases) watch your team’s season spiral away from you into nothingness, you continue to fill your hours with baseball. Because even the Rockies resorting to mop-up duty in the third, even Ryan Howard going 0-for-5 with a platinum sombrero, even the best pitcher in baseball getting shellacked in the playoffs because at some point the bullpen turned into a pile of drunk and rabid possums ... even that is preferable to no baseball at all.
So shake off those cobwebs and snap out of your doldrums, because baseball is returning. It’s time to throw both arms around that comforting beast and make your resolution for the 2015 season. Make the most of it, and don’t let anyone (other than your team, of course) bring you down.
Come hell or high water, this is going to be your year. Our year.
Yes, for about 97 percent of baseball fans, this season is going to end in heartbreak. That doesn’t matter. Especially not now, as Opening Day approaches. That heartbreak is all the way over there. You’ll get there, don’t worry. No need to stampede toward it when you’re feeling bad. Let’s turn it around and embrace it, because before you know it, it’ll be gone again. And nobody wants that.
This year, resolve to wring every last drop of enjoyment out of the MLB season. It’s baseball, dang it, and you love it. Why else would you do this to yourself each year? Renew your love of baseball by not letting anyone tell you what to do, how to root, or how to feel. You’re in control of your baseball adventure, so live it as hard as you can.
Some simple tips:
- Believe. Don’t give up hope, because stranger things have happened. Yes, stranger than the 2015 Phillies winning the World Series. Probably.
- Root however you want to root. Yes, this goes against the previous bullet point. That’s fine. If you want to never believe, to be a doom-and-gloomer, that’s perfectly acceptable. I totally understand that. Always expecting the worst can make the good things unexpected and wonderful. That’s fine. Everyone’s wired differently. You be you.
- Don’t ever let anyone shame you. Not for the way you root, not for loving your favorite team, not for your (at times) completely irrational thoughts or beliefs about players, tactics, rules, stats, or anything else that becomes a sticking point with jerks and trolls that pepper the baseball world. Life’s way too short to have someone else make you feel bad about the things you like or why and how you enjoy them. (While we’re at it, don’t have “guilty pleasures.” Just enjoy things. You can like whatever you want. Be proud.)
- Don’t be a jerk. Sometimes it’s hard not to gloat after a big win and sometimes you may lose your cool and tweet the stray GOD I HATE THE YANKEES, but don’t go after people. If someone says they love a team, there’s no reason for you to immediately blurt out, “THEY’RE GARBAGE AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD,” regardless of how much you may dislike their team personally. Just say, “That’s cool, I like (your team).” Let things go from there. If someone says they love/hate steroids, you don’t have to immediately stampede to a “WELL ACTUALLY.” Just relax. Everyone roots in their own way. Everyone has their own hot, lukewarm or cold take. Just ride the wave. Don’t resort to arguments as a first, or even second resort. Try to love your neighbor as you love the game. However that may be.
So, buckle up and/or strap in, because it’s about to be baseball season, and -- for everyone, at least for the first month or two -- the sky’s the limit. On Opening Day, everyone has the same chance to win it all. But that’s all the way over there, and you’ve got between 162 and 182 games (or so) to worry about that. For now, just enjoy it. Love it. Because it’s finally back. And there’s no telling what can happen.
This will be our year. Took a long time to come.
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