Ask BoL-- a Primer

*Milton Bradley, circa 2001.

dear BoL -

i am concerned for myself. i feel so empty inside. last winter, i spent the days longingly staring out the window, hoping for the faintest glimmer of spring. maybe a robin scratching around after april showers for a worm? a little daffodil bulb peeking into the morning light? the transformation of brown depressing lawns into vibrant green up shoots? all of these are telltale signs of a baseball season on the horizon. last year i looked at schedules, thought about tickets, considered spring training. every day i scoured web sites for the latest in hot stove reports. looked at projections. but this year - i feel nothing. could it be that after all these years i have finally give the cubs all i had and realized there was no return on investment? i mean, seriously. people say "jake peavy," and i say, "meh." people say, "milton bradley," and i say, "fine." i feel like i've just woken up with a husband of 50 years and realized that i'm out of love with him. and if it's so easy to fall out of love, did i ever truly love him in the first place?

how can i spark the romance again?

Lost in Greensboro

Dearest Lost,
Consider the dust on the mantle. It's arrival at that destination took millions of years to process, incredible amounts of luck to arrive at that surface and only seconds to eliminate. The commonality of dust, of course is a given, but ponder: individual flakes of your skin-- overworked and overwrought-- escaped your body's complex system of checks and balances to gather in small clumps level with your eye. The difference between flaking off in the cold, sliding off with a glove, wiping off on a napkin after a lukewarm egg-and-cheese biscuit (enjoyed at your desk during work hours) or even being blown off by a mock kiss being blown to a friend and landing in this specific spot on said mantle is the difference between love and indifference. It takes but one solid moment-- a moment of combined luck and fatalism-- to begin a process thousands of years in the making. The dust landed there-- your dead skin-- by chance, yes, but it still landed.

In 2003 the speck of dust was Aaron Boone. In 2004, it was Dave Roberts. Two insignificant specks that forever changed the way I view baseball. They landed on the right mantle at the perfect time and clumped enough for me to see them. That's it. Whatever skill was necessary came down to some other event causing a cataclysm-- Pedro left in too long, Bill Mueller fighting off the best closer in history, etc. Baseball is the ultimate cause-and-effect scenario. You will be affected as I was, as we all shall be.

The crack of the bat may not stir you, but the manic drive of spring shall awaken you at some point. I promise.

Yours in Waiting,
BoL

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