Baseball was my first love.
I can’t even explain why I first started watching it. I never played baseball or softball, except once or twice in gym class. Basketball was the sport I loved to play, but baseball was the sport I loved to watch. My dad had the games on TV sometimes, not yet the devoted fan he is now, and one day I just started watching with him. I have never stopped watching.
For a sport I only started watching on a whim, baseball has brought so much to my life. It has given me a better relationship not only with my father, but also the other men in my family. Every year, the men in my extended family went on a “guys trip” to a Phillies game. Every year, of course, until my sister and I started crashing it. Some of my happiest memories have centered around baseball– the time my dad and I saw Kevin Millwood’s no-hitter in person, the phone call from my elated grandfather after the Phillies won the 2008 World Series, the yearly trips with my uncle who passed away last month.
Baseball has also carried me through some of the worst times in my life. As someone who has spent the better part of the last 5 years in states of health ranging from “I think I’m getting a fever” to “am I still going to be alive in the morning?”, I have countless memories of sleepless nights spent watching old highlights to distract myself from the pain. I remember watching games from my hospital bed as doctors snuck in to check the score, and even that time a nurse tried to convince my heavily medicated self that the Phillies had traded our mascot. There is good for every bad, and I can tell the story of being diagnosed on my birthday alongside the memory of a combined no-hitter on that date three years later. Hell, the first time my bag leaked in public was at Cooperstown– I deserve to be inducted into the IBD Hall of Fame for that one.
As Phillies pitchers and catchers report to spring training, the fact that their first official workout is on Valentine’s Day seems like no coincidence. On a day that’s all about love and overpriced chocolates, I look back on the little girl who first sat down to watch baseball all those years ago and never imagined all the joy (and maybe some frustration) it would bring to her life. Through good times and bad times, Gold Gloves and blown saves, I know I’ll always have my one true love.