When ALL Things Are Possible For MY Team

Spring training has started and the Padres have already dropped a couple.  Hey, it's just spring training, they made a lot of good moves in the off season.  This could be their year!  Of course I say this every year and that's the beauty of Spring.  All things are possible for a baseball fan.  The carcass of last year's miserable season is a distant forgettable memory.  Baseball is back and the world is spinning in greased grooves.

Baseball fans are eternal optimists.  Though football has surpassed America's Pastime in popularity, the number of games played by a major league baseball team keeps hope alive for most of us at least until June. Even the most miserable clubs have a chance to put together a winning season at that point.  Growing up in Michigan I lived for the Detroit Tigers and great players like Al Kaline, Charlie "Paw Paw" Maxwell and Frank Lary.  They seldom beat my Dad's beloved Chicago White Sox but they were MY team.  Baseball more than other sports inspires an ineffable loyalty and sense of ownership in its fans.  Ask most any American if they have a team and even casual fans will confess to having an allegiance to a favorite organization.

As I mentioned, my father was a lifelong fan of the Chicago White Sox.  Other than being from downstate Illinois,  I know of no particular reason he chose the pale hose.  He grew up in what is considered to be St. Louis Cardinal country but always preferred the American League over the National.  Among the many questions I wished I had asked while he was still around,  his choice of a baseball team intrigues me quite a lot.  My Uncle Bob was also a White Sox fan but Uncle Louie was a National League guy all the way who remained loyal to the Chicago Cubs throughout his lifetime.  It's hard to imagine that they failed to make even a single trip to the World Series during his entire earthly hitch.  My brother Steve continues to carry the Cubs torch and is beginning to question whether he too will get shafted by those "lovable losers" before he slides home.

After moving from Michigan I flirted with other teams.  A couple of years fealty to the Twins, a fling with the Red Sox, Angels, Giants, A's and Mariners were a product of my radio gypsy life. In 1976 I took at job handling the afternoon drive show on the Padre's flagship station, KOGO, in San Diego.  There I was fortunate enough to work with former Yankee great Jerry Coleman, one of the finest men I have ever known.  Jerry was the play-by-play announcer for the Pads and also handled sportscasts at 4:30 and 5:30 PM on my radio show.  A genuine war hero who had his baseball career interrupted for service as a combat pilot in both World War II and Korea,  Jerry was just a tremendous human being.  From day one he made me feel at home in San Diego and always made tickets to Padre games available  whenever I wanted them.  We worked together for two years and largely because of Jerry, I became a Padres fan for life.  

Most everyone has a story about when a team became "their" team, and it's usually  an interesting one.  You can learn a lot about somebody by simply steering the conversation toward the subject of favorite baseball teams.  Cubs and Mets fans, for example, tend to be far more patient than the rest of us; also slightly more masochistic.  Some fans relish a club's history or repeated success but most have a special something that inspired them to sign up for life, which reminds me…  NEVER trust a Yankee fan!  Yankee fans are bandwagon clowns and front runners.  They've suffered little as fans and deserve to be scorned by the rest of us.  Dodger fans are equally wretched.  They are merely the Yankee fans of the National League and deserve your disdain.  If necessary, move to the other side of the street when you see a Yankee or Dodger fan approaching.  They are to be pitied and recognized as the opportunistic low life scum they truly are.

And now, if you'll excuse me,  Spring is in the air and the Padres are about to take on the White Sox in a Cactus League tilt.  Via Direct TV and the 2015 MLB package, I'll be there to support the Friars.
Sorry Dad, the White Sox just aren't MY TEAM.