maybe dreams are just that. . .

i think it was about this time last year when i went to hastings, bought a copy of the rookie on dvd, and went back to that dream.

i am that kid. the kid who wants to make the catch that ends the world series, the kid that hits the walk off homerun, the kid the fans look to in the clutch. it started at an early age. for many years as a kid, i jumped from team to team, for a while it was the dodgers, for the year i was a baseball player for halloween, it was the tigers, in 2oo3, it shifted permanently to the red sox. say what you will about the 2005 movie, Fever Pitch, but i enjoy it. it's one of my movies i can go to when i need to just sort of watch something, along with the 2004 world series film dvd. (which, now that i've mentioned i might just watch, and i still need to buy the 2oo7 dvd. but that's beside the point) but the way Ben, the main character played by Jimmy Fallon feels about baseball in general is so close to the way i feel.

Ben: You know what's really great about baseball?
Lindsey: Hmm?
Ben: You can't fake it. You know, anything else in life you don't have to be great in - business, music, art - I mean you can get lucky.
Lindsey: Really?
Ben: Yeah, you can fool everyone for awhile, you know? It's like - not - not baseball. You can either hit a curveball or you can't. That's the way it works...
Lindsey: Hmm.
Ben: You know?
Ben: You can have a lucky day, sure, but you can't have a lucky career. It's a little like math. It's orderly. Win or lose, it's fair. It all adds up. It's, like, not as confusing or as ambiguous as, uh...
Lindsey: Life?
Ben: Yeah. It's - it's safe

there it is. baseball is my fallback, my bright spot on a cloudy day, my stress reliever. everyday during the warm months during high school my friend and i were out there, playing catch, and not just catch like you might play with your pops, no, this was crazy, pretend you're patrolling right field at fenway park during game 7 of the world series style catch.

i wish i had played. all the time, i wish i had played. every year during high school i said to myself, "i'm going to play this year" but every year, without fail, for whatever reason, i didn't wind up doing it. would i have been good? probably not. i'd probably been a reserve at best. but i wouldn't have cared. just to have a jersey on my back, would be incredible. i think that's part of the reason i was (still am) so excited when i found my sox jersey. because, let's be honest, that's probably the closest i'll ever come to wearing the number 16 for my sox.

but heck, there's no harm in having a dream.