Wednesday, April 2, 2008

All is new again

Opening day. A day where I feel the year truely begins, where the past is the past and all we have is the future, where life feels complete and full, Where baseball is pertually always on (thank you Sportscenter with your 7 repeats throughout the day). This is a day that is now a family holiday in the runningman household. Opening day, I love you.

Captain Awesome and myself fell into some tickets and we planned to head on down to the stadium to get a few beers and lunch before the first pitch of the epic battle and yearly classic of the Rockies v. The Cards. It was Christmas.

So there we were eating some brats, drinking a beer down by stadium and then it happened. It stared back at me with sad eyes. The two 66's turned sadly upside down and grudgingly turned into 99's. The 99's grabbed everyones attention, and in a way it reminded me, dare I say it reminded all of us why we are all here. It reminded us of the Taguchi era. The era of the swunt, of the mighty pop-ups. The era that brought us a guy who always got a great jump on the ball just to have it hit 10 feet in front of him. Those 99's were talking to us they were saying go on, go on without me but don't forget me. Don't forget the magic of 99, the Taguchi spirt, that .

I was humbled and I am so glad we got rid of you 99. I know, I know it not your fault. You never should have been here, I know. We put you in a position that you should not have been in. You were not the disease but only a symptom of the disease known as LaRussa. You couldn't help it if you were put in for defensive ability even though you couldn't catch, field or throw....or even take the appropriate routes to any ball hit your way. You couldn't help it if Edmonds or Duncan were removed against a lefthander so that you could show off your swunt or swinging and missing skills....or mighty pop-up abilty.

So, we will move on without you 99 but we will not forget you.

No comments: