I love baseball... even if you don't.
That's not to say I don't understand where you're coming from. Baseball games are long and the excitement-to-length ratio is skewed in the wrong direction. I get it.
I much prefer to think of baseball as the Netflix of sports, where standalone episodes aren't as important as the seasonal arc, and you can have games on in the background while you're doing other things and still be caught up. But that's not why I love baseball.
Love for this game can't be rooted in consumption the way NFL or NBA lovers eat up small bits of highlight goodness like Skittles. Maybe that's why in this highlight-era of sports we're told baseball is dying. Then again, baseball's been dying for almost 20 years and player salaries have never been higher -- long live, baseball!
In all seriousness, baseball's allure emanates from a child-like urge to see and imitate your heroes. It's why baseball is so often passed down from father to son, why grown-ups wear jerseys with someone else's name on the back and why I want to be Mike Trout when I grow up.
With Opening Day finally here, I bet I'm not alone. At the ballpark tonight, I'm sure there will be a myriad of men, women and children in the stands donning No. 27 Angels jerseys. All fellow kids at heart.
Not that I need to grow up -- I'm only 31. That might make me too young to love baseball by today's demographics. But when Trout is up to bat, I don't dare change the channel. If he's due up in the bottom of the inning, I'll suffer commercials even in this DVR world.
At the ballpark, bathroom breaks are strategically timed for "FOMT" or "fear of missing Trout." He might jump over a wall or deposit a baseball somewhere near the 57 Freeway. I'm not missing that. No exceptions.
My dad's generation had "The Mick" the "Say Hey Kid" and I grew up when Bo knew everything. Trout is built like Bo, hits like Mick and will probably be enshrined somewhere near Willie one day. He's both a throwback to a different era and a modern day GIF-able superstar.
We're talking about a guy that plays on the same team as Albert Pujols and somehow Albert plays a very distant second fiddle to him. Which is why it doesn't surprise me that Albert has a poster of Trout in his house. I bet in his most honest moments, he wants to be Trout too.
So, yeah. I want to be that guy.
And I still love baseball. And I still want to be like Mike Trout.
