BACK HOME!

I'm back in the city. And it's like having a giant cheese pizza in front of me while I'm laced up in a Hannibal Lector straight jacket. Meaning, I finally can post all my Spring Training adventures, but the Catch 22 is that MY LAPTOP'S BATTERY IS DEAD. No, I can't just charge it because the charger is broken. And I'm scared to take it down the Apple Store in Soho because I have a feeling that since it is in "trendy Soho" that I will have to pay a cover charge to get in, and I might not even be allowed in at all because I'm wearing sneakers or something. Blech. So right now I'm at work even though I finished real work hours ago, because I am without internet connection/word processor at home. But suffice to say that once I have the means, spring training memories will be immortalized on here.

That pizza reference made me hungry, I'm leaving. Stories to come soon. You know what else is soon? MY BIRTHDAY WHICH IS TOMORROW. BIG 24. That's right, thats what I said.

Who am I even talking to here? I'm just going to leave myself with the illusion that I have an audience...

Here's what I got on spring training so far:

"Nothing will ever be as much fun as baseball."--Mickey Mantle

Truer words were never spoken. When faced with having to use up 5 vacation days before the end of March, it was pretty clear what I needed to do. I could either go to Rio with my girlfriends or Tampa alone. (Or stay home and watch daytime television and capitalize on the fact you can have McDonald's delivered in NYC.) I received more than a few weird looks when I told everyone at work I was taking off for Spring Training by myself. Or as my boss said, "The Yankees are going to sic a restraining order on you soon."

Why did I venture to Legends Field solo? Because no one else I know would want to arrive at the stadium 4 hours before it started just to watch Yogi Berra drive around in a golf cart. Or would want to sit in the stadium long after the game was over just listening to "New York, New York" play on a loop. Or would recognize that the beauty of Spring Training is not the games themselves, but what they represent. They're not just a pre-party for the impending best months of the year. I wasn't just taking a vacation from TPS reports. I was taking a vacation from steroids, exhausted media-coverage of certain rivalries, running tallies of payrolls, and watching once-awe-inspiring players become shells of their former selves.

I'm not jaded. In the words of San Francisco OF, "I'm just tired." But last week I took a hiatus from all those controversial tumors that compromise the game. Spring Training is the game at its purest form. No mind-numbing congressional hearings, no arguments with my friends over fantasy trades. And even more amazing--no hostile fans (not many, anyway) taunting their rival fans.

The fact of the matter is, I could be fighting a bad case of shingles, be soaking wet from a relentless monsoon, and be sitting next to the token drunk guy with sweaty chest hair puffing out of his wife beater, and I'd still be wearing that dumb-founded, sh*t-eating, Manny Ramirez-esque grin. And spring training? Good God, it's like throwing a dirty-stayout into a Viagra convention. (Insert your own "things are looking up" pun here.) Basically, spring training takes the game, extrapolates everything sublimely perfect about it, magnifies this by a million, and then makes it all accessible to me.

It's easy to forget why baseball has been dubbed the Great American Pasttime, but an exhibition game is baseball in a vacuum. The sport stripped of its political complications and peppered with endearing B-side stories. Spring Training is The Breakfast Club: all these different walks of life ignore that everything will go back to "normal" come opening day, and they just seem to enjoy themselves. And like The Breakfast Club, it makes for great viewing pleasure that doesn't require too much thinking.

In broader terms, it simply defies conventional odds. And I can't figure out why this is. It's like how tourists come to New York City and witness cupcake shops being held up by armed men wearing lampshades and diapers. Which prompts the ever-popular, ultimately hackneyed expression: "Only in New York, only in New York."  

Likewise, Spring Training is the Big Apple of Major League Baseball. Only in Spring Training will you see the most intimidating pitcher in the game throw a fastball that's interrupted by a bird on an obvious suicide mission. When else are you going to see a game called on the basis of a "Bee Delay"? Apparently one of the player's "Coconut Oil Conditioner" attracted a swarm of bees to the field. Imagine living that one down in the locker room.

Even the subtler spring training windfalls are worth appreciating. Like the 12-2 homerun-ridden game I saw on Thursday when the Yanks used Atlanta for batting practice. Or just seeing future Hall-of-Famers enjoying a nice steak dinner out. (This may not seem monumental, but I swear, it's like seeing your teacher out on a date or something. You just don't expect them to exist outside the capacity of how you know them.)

Only in Spring Training, only in Spring Training.

Other highlights of my personal Utopia In Which Normal Social Boundaries Dissolve:

Most Damning Proof Red Sox and Yankees Fans Can Make Nice: I arrived at my hotel at 10am. When I learned the room wouldn't be ready for 3 hours, I asked the receptionist to point me to the bar. I ordered a vodka tonic, and without batting an eye, the bartender asks, "One shot or two?" I realize this is good people right here, and after talking for a little, I discover it's a Boston fan making my drinks strong enough to kill a brontosaurus. (Maybe that was his intention...?) Over "Sizzling Chicken Fajitas" and a potpourri of mixed drinks, much pleasant conversation is exchanged ("I can't believe we actually won!" "I gotta hand it to you, unbelievable 8-0 sweep...). The bill? About $20 less than it should have been. Boston Bartender says, "Those last few drinks were for Game 7 this year."

Closest I Got To the Upper End of the Baseball Caste System: Mr. Steinbrenner himself was sitting about 4 rows behind me in his outdoor luxury suite. After the game, I walked up to the wall separating the bourgeoisie from the commoners and handed him my baseball to sign. Then I handed him a blown up picture of my bathroom (a mural of Yankee Stadium) on which I had written: "When can I paint over the 26 with a 27?" Well, I handed it to his bodyguard-type person anyway. Apparently, you couldn't hand anything to the Boss directly. (What is this, a blackjack table?)

Most Admirable Move By A Different Generation: I was enjoying a delightful chocolate chip ice cream cone outside the International Plaza while reading my Fantasy 2005 Reports Magazine. (Who has it better than me?) Then a braces-toting boy who couldn't have been any older than 17 approached me and said, `Would you like to join me and my friends for dinner? We saw you sitting alone and thought you might want to eat with us." I was floored. So I celebrated the "Anything Goes" Spring Training Philosophy and had a drink with three boys who can't get into R-rated movies. And by "drink," I mean ice tea.

Overall Best Highlight: Fans clamored around the fences when Mariano Rivera walked by, and I knew there was no way I could compete with little kids playing their Cute Toddler Card. So I yelled, "Mariano, I named my cat after you!" And alas, he looked up, smiled, walked over, and signed my ball. He's such a good guy. And he has this perfect signature that looks like it should only be made with feather pens, and on old leather books from the 1800's.

Good times. So now I'm back in New York, trying to still my beating heart in anticipation of opening day. I'm back in the land where Mets fans stop me in bars to inform me the Yankees suck, where Carl Pavano's $3 million new apartment in midtown is big news, and where "How do you think Pedro will do this year?" is heard more than "I had the WORST cab ride over here..."

Home sweet home. While I loved every second of my time basking in warm weather and Baseball Purity, it's good to be back. I'm a subway ride away from the stadium and mere days away from opening day.

Let's the games begin.