Pitchers and Catchers

[Programming note: I've needed to write something not drenched in photography technobabble. So here's this.]

Catching a game at Busch Stadium in 2007 in our... younger days

I played Little League terribly for two years [not coincidentally, it was after this that my parents took me to an optometrist for the first time]. And though I was briefly obsessed with baseball in the way kids do over the things in which they're involved, I quickly moved on to other more or less absorbing activities and interests. My upbringing in Alabama, where Football is King, insured that baseball became an afterthought.

Fast-forward to May 9, 2005, at Busch Stadium ("Busch II") in St. Louis, where my best friend and roommate, Adam, had dragged me. I tagged along to hang out, not to pay attention to one insignificant game in an excruciating 162-game season hosted by a team I knew little about. Having abandoned baseball in elementary school, I came to the ballpark that day a sports fan with allegiances to no team. (In retrospect, I was ripe for the picking.)

We no sooner had settled into our seats when Albert Pujols mashed a homer into the stands nearby-- the first major league home run I'd seen-- and the buzz of the crowd pulled me into this game. The Dodgers would tie the score, then swat around the Cardinals pitcher before he barely escaped a men-on-second-and-third jam in the top of the fifth inning. I couldn't believe myself: this was fun, actually somewhat suspenseful, and I cared about the outcome of this game! So much so that at the bottom of the inning, I still felt unsettled. The Dodgers seemed to have come alive, while the Cardinals had been silent since the first inning. After a groundout, a walk, and a single, the crowd stirred and roared to lift us out of our seats as #5 approached the plate for his third at-bat.

So of course, after working the count full, Albert Pujols swung, and for a moment I couldn't see anything-- the crowd was losing its ever-loving mind around me-- until the ball came back into view and landed in the seats a few rows ahead of me, and I was enveloped by a stadium dissolving into sheer pandemonium.

Hook, line, and sinker.
That's the day I became a baseball fan, a Cardinals fan, and an Albert Pujols fan*.

Today is "Pitchers and Catchers": when pitchers and catchers report to camp, marking the beginning of Spring Training. I'll be counting down the days til they say "Play Ball" and start the 2013 season.

Fuzz is ready for some baseball! (Well actually, she's just trying to hatch her squeaky toy).

*Though Pujols is no longer with my beloved team, it's incontrovertible that he's the reason I'm a baseball fan (with an assist from Adam). No longer my favorite Cardinal, he is still one of my favorites.

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2/13/13 Update:

I knew there had to be a reason this memory rang so vividly in my mind-- there's a video! I had pulled out my camera at the time and caught this very moment on "tape":