Baseball fans rejoice

These are the true dog days.

June has wound itself down. July is upon us. Temperatures are up over 100 degrees and night games have become a fan’s best friend. People will try to talk NFL already but, for now at least, baseball has its turn.

It’s my favorite time of the year.

Baseball is a game that goes with the rhythm of the working man. Where football is a popular weekend distraction, forcing fan anxiety throughout any week, baseball’s rhythm is that of the 9-5 toiler. Each and every day, through the heat of the summer, baseball players and fans get to the ballpark, go through their routine, eat their hot dogs, drink their beer, and obey the most American of rituals around a game that so few non-Americans understand.

Yesterday, I heard a college football coach being interviewed on a sports radio show. It was July 1. As soon as the NBA was over, the largest sports network in the country who would love to have more of a stake in baseball started to bash it and talk football. It was a mistake.

Baseball is truly the most patriotic of American sports. By U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class David McKee, via Wikimedia Commons

July is for baseball. In August, we will start to talk about football, but let’s sit back and enjoy baseball for a few months here. Let’s get excited over the nuance. Go through our daily fan routine. Be pumped when we haven’t payed attention for a few days and look up and our team is making a surge.

Don’t even get me started about spending time at games. Being at a baseball game, getting the true dimensionality of the field, and the sights, smells, and sounds is a sensory treat that is anticipated before and yearned for after. Visiting a game is like a choose your own adventure fan experience. A fan can choose to visit with friends if he/she wants to just casually watch the game. Fans can also choose to keep score, paying attention to every intricate detail for 2-3 hours. In no other sport to fans keep score.

In other sports, there are constant fouls, penalties, and other rules infractions that result in punishment. While there are some of these still, America’s pastime is generally devoid of that kind of regular public punishment. Other sports are timed. It’s cliche, but baseball is timeless. In fact, the sport itself is a wonderful cliche of opportunistic players from this country and immigrants making their mark and experiencing the true American Dream.

“Owen, this is too corny,” you might say.

Yep. I know. I don’t care.

“You are just excited because the Dodgers are making up ground in the National League West.”

I won’t lie, that probably has a lot to do with it. The Dodgers, after all, have gone from 12 games under .500 to just 3 1/2 games back of first place, led by a player from a communist country who has turned into the spark they needed.

As a reminder to those of you who are patriotic Americans — neither orange or black are American colors. Don’t forget it.