Off day
From a fan's perspective, off days are just the worst, especially for fans of powerhouse teams like the 2012 Lansing Lugnuts. A day off? When it could be better spent racking up another win instead? Awful.
I would go to sleep each night as a kid with the sounds of baseball humming through my radio. An off day meant sports talk instead of Jon Miller's voice, with its familiar, comfortable humor. Man, did I dislike off days.
(I did not like sports talk when I was younger. It struck me as a lot of blathering and shouting about ridiculous things. I warmed up slightly with Tony Kornheiser and ESPN's evening show in the 1990s featuring Tony Bruno, Chuck Wilson, Joe D'Ambrosio and Todd Wright. Currently, I think that my younger self has gone back to being right, and the bad far outweighs the good.)
An off day for me now, though, is a godsend.
My sleep patterns are all out of whack from the School Days of last week, and we have another one coming up this week. With me and the players, our energy levels have to be at their highest between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m. throughout the summer, right when everyone else is winding down. Put us on the spot with a day requiring our energy levels to be highest between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and it causes an unexpected afternoon nap that goes way too far into the evening and leaves me wide awake at 3 in the morning. An off day lets me straighten all of that out, clean my apartment, pay my rent/bills, do a little grocery shopping, get in a workout (I haven't had a true workout since - oh, man, probably late February or early March), catch up at work (we're doing the 2012 Lugnuts baseball cards right now), and catch up with my friends and family.
Yes, in the end, a serene off day can get pretty busy.
This might sound strange, too, but I miss having a baseball game. My workdays are long, just like the players (while they stretch and practice and drill, I'm preparing all of my materials), but I love the game. There's something about baseball that's both relaxing and exhilarating: In the same evening, I might be leaning about in my chair, laughing at something silly, and later standing up, leaning forward, my heart pounding.
The Lugnuts are 18-6. There are going to be better days ahead, there are going to be worse days ahead, and there are going to be a couple more off days here or there.
I'm ready.
I would go to sleep each night as a kid with the sounds of baseball humming through my radio. An off day meant sports talk instead of Jon Miller's voice, with its familiar, comfortable humor. Man, did I dislike off days.
(I did not like sports talk when I was younger. It struck me as a lot of blathering and shouting about ridiculous things. I warmed up slightly with Tony Kornheiser and ESPN's evening show in the 1990s featuring Tony Bruno, Chuck Wilson, Joe D'Ambrosio and Todd Wright. Currently, I think that my younger self has gone back to being right, and the bad far outweighs the good.)
An off day for me now, though, is a godsend.
My sleep patterns are all out of whack from the School Days of last week, and we have another one coming up this week. With me and the players, our energy levels have to be at their highest between the hours of 7 and 11 p.m. throughout the summer, right when everyone else is winding down. Put us on the spot with a day requiring our energy levels to be highest between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and it causes an unexpected afternoon nap that goes way too far into the evening and leaves me wide awake at 3 in the morning. An off day lets me straighten all of that out, clean my apartment, pay my rent/bills, do a little grocery shopping, get in a workout (I haven't had a true workout since - oh, man, probably late February or early March), catch up at work (we're doing the 2012 Lugnuts baseball cards right now), and catch up with my friends and family.
Yes, in the end, a serene off day can get pretty busy.
This might sound strange, too, but I miss having a baseball game. My workdays are long, just like the players (while they stretch and practice and drill, I'm preparing all of my materials), but I love the game. There's something about baseball that's both relaxing and exhilarating: In the same evening, I might be leaning about in my chair, laughing at something silly, and later standing up, leaning forward, my heart pounding.
The Lugnuts are 18-6. There are going to be better days ahead, there are going to be worse days ahead, and there are going to be a couple more off days here or there.
I'm ready.
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