The thing I miss...

It has been almost a year since I left Florida to accept a call to serve in my home state of Iowa. That is hard to believe! Still, I am starting to come around to the idea that this is where I want to be. There is only one thing holding me back, and it is a stupid little thing that really made no difference in my life whatsoever until two years ago. Baseball.

I never really cared for baseball growing up. Sure, I collected baseball cards. I even had a favorite team: the Chicago White Sox. Believe it or not, my favorite player was Ozzie Guillen, the out-spoken and sometime psychotic manager that led the Sox to the series a few years back. Because I spent summers with my dad in Colorado and Wyoming, I was never able to play little league baseball and eventually lost interest in the whole thing. Until I was looking for something better to do.

I was very deliberate when I moved to Spring Hill, Florida that I would try to get into one of the local teams. My devotion to the Broncos meant following the Bucs wasn't an option. I didn't care for hockey, so the Lightning weren't very attractive. But like a ray from heaven (pun intended), I was drawn to baseball. All things equal it was probably a combination of the fact that the D-Rays at that time we offering free parking and cheap tickets that I chose to attend some games. Still, I made my choice to follow the worst team in baseball ball and soon I became (for me) a baseball fanatic.

Tropicana Stadium has been rated by many as one of the worst ballparks in the major leagues. It is true. For me, it was a place of Zen. Sitting in the cheap seats, watching a professional baseball game...amazing! I had never had that experience before. I loved it! Not all the games were irrelevant. There were Yankee and Red Sox games where the building was alive (and where the Rays were the underdog in their own stadium!). There were games that lasted well into the night. There were free cowbells. It was wonderful. Going to the Trop was one of the great joys of my time in Florida, and along with Sea World, is really the only thing I miss about living in Florida.

Sadly, my newfound love of the Rays is something I have had to give up as I have moved back to Iowa. I have to venture far and wide to find games to watch. (Thank goodness they play a series in the Twin Cities and another in KC!) I pray that they play the Yankees or Red Sox so that they might be on television. (I get to watch them on Monday Night Baseball next week!) It will take a little more effort, but I think I can manage. I might be waxing nostalgic. While the Rays were on TV in the Tampa area, its not like anyone supported them. You had to search far and wide to find their hats and jerseys next to the Yankees crap. Yet, it was my team. It remains one of my regrets... that I can no longer root, root, root for the home team.

Alas, I will still wear my TB gear with pride, even if I get laughed at by the guy in the Cubs hat. I made out like a bandit this winter and added three more hats to my collection, on clearance in Iowa. Just in time. They changed their uniforms in the spring.