{"id":3950,"date":"2010-04-04T18:49:06","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T01:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=3950"},"modified":"2010-04-04T18:56:21","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T01:56:21","slug":"welcome-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/04\/welcome-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

A hearty and healthy “Welcome Back” to all the details of Major League Baseball.<\/em><\/p>\n

I love the digital age.<\/p>\n

At exactly 8:23 Sunday evening, I knew baseball season had officially returned.\u00c2\u00a0 Granted, I had arranged my Sunday around baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opening night. \u00c2\u00a0I had spent the late afternoon and early evening grilling cheeseburgers with sides of sweet potato fries and grilled skewers of vegetables accompanied by a few adult beverages; plopped myself down in front of the TV and watched Baseball Tonight; and then switched over to YES and relished Josh Beckett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first pitch\u00e2\u20ac\u201deven though Derek Jeter took a hack and bounced out to short. \u00c2\u00a0However, the season didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start for me until my buddy Tex sent me a simple text message:<\/em><\/p>\n

Happy baseball.<\/em><\/p>\n

Six minutes later, Jorge Posada drove a Beckett fastball off the Pesky pole down the right field line and my cell phone blew up.\u00c2\u00a0 First my sister sent me an exultant \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ha, yes,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/em>followed immediately by my dad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hip hip Jorge!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> As I lifted the phone to respond, Curtis Granderson went deep over the right field bullpen.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, we had something brewing.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Dad: Oy.\u00c2\u00a0 You should have heard John Sterling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s radio call on Granderson.<\/em><\/p>\n

Andy (my old roommate): So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s john sterling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tagline for him?<\/em><\/p>\n

Dad (immediately): “Oh Curtis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you are something grand-ish”<\/em><\/p>\n

After a few others starting to flood my inbox, I managed to forward Sterling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unique tagline for a Granderson homer to Andy.\u00c2\u00a0 He responded: <\/em><\/p>\n

Just threw up a little in my mouth<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Baseball is back and I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be happier to welcome everything about it back into my life.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not talking about the games and outcomes, because as important as they may be, they pale in comparison to the little emotion-filled intricacies, such as the above text conversation, that comprise the major league baseball season.<\/p>\n

So, without further ado, allow me to welcome the details of baseball back into my life.<\/p>\n

Welcome back, Michael Kay, head play-by-play man at YES.\u00c2\u00a0 You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re an excellent sports-talk radio host on ESPN radio.\u00c2\u00a0 However, you constantly incite text messages from my sister like, What the hell is he going on about?<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome back, Karl Ravech, Tim Kurkjian, John Kruk, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Baseball Tonight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still the best baseball show on TV, even with the addition of Curt Schilling.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, I kind of enjoy watching Schilling on my HDTV to see just how unkind the past few years have been to him.\u00c2\u00a0 Was that joke too soon following his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recent book tour?<\/p>\n

Welcome back to the rotating cast of goodness that is the MLBTV broadcasts of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153MLB Tonight\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Quick Pitch.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Harold Reynolds and Mitch Williams are slowly becoming the voices of Major League baseball to me.<\/p>\n

Welcome back, Joe Morgan and Jon Miller.\u00c2\u00a0 Seeing the two of them in their garish ties and fake smiles always reassures me.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re alive.\u00c2\u00a0 Good.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I can change the channel.<\/p>\n

Welcome back, Orel Hershiser.\u00c2\u00a0 Hershiser killed it during the College World Series last year and was always a wonderful addition to the ESPN broadcasts during last season.\u00c2\u00a0 I was elated to see him sharing the booth with Miller and Morgan. \u00c2\u00a0Maybe he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take airtime away from both of them.<\/p>\n

Welcome back Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball sites.\u00c2\u00a0 Between November and April, I have no idea what to do with my downtime.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, I can once again obsess over players on the waiver wire, stay up way too late adjusting my lineup for the following day, read the countless number of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153expert\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sites touting the value of Adrian Beltre and Aaron Harang, and infuriate my fianc\u00c3\u00a9e as she finds my face glued to the computer screen once again.<\/p>\n

Welcome back, HR, RBI, W, SV, WHIP, ERA; not to mention VORP, WAR, ERA+, OBP, OPS, BABIP, UVR and all the other advanced metrics illuminating every dark corner of the game.<\/p>\n

Welcome back to my favorite websites: Fangraphs, Baseball-Prospectus, the MLB portal on ESPN.com, Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com, Yankees.com, and of course Seamheads.com.<\/p>\n

Welcome back barbecues and radio broadcasts of games blaring in the background.<\/p>\n

Welcome back, chin music, taters, web-gems, diamond dailies, worm-burners, fifty-footers, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Red Sox Suck,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sausage races, bombs, shots, lasers, frozen ropes, nail-biters, shellackings, Baltimore chops, and pick-off attempts.\u00c2\u00a0 Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not forget to leave the door open for Bull Durham, Major League, Rookie of the Year, The Rookie, <\/em>and this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s newest addition \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Sugar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome back to the wild card, the All-Star Break, pennant races, and box scores.<\/p>\n

Welcome back to the eternal background noise of my springs and summers.<\/p>\n

And finally, welcome back to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Seamheads writing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d folder on my desktop.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been far too long since I saved something to you.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so glad to have you all in my life once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A hearty and healthy “Welcome Back” to all the details of Major League Baseball. I love the digital age. At exactly 8:23 Sunday evening, I knew baseball season had officially returned.\u00c2\u00a0 Granted, I had arranged my Sunday around baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opening night. \u00c2\u00a0I had spent the late afternoon and early evening grilling cheeseburgers with sides of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[47,1371,5739,5737,42,5738],"class_list":["post-3950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-baseball","tag-espn","tag-john-sterling","tag-michael-kay","tag-mlb","tag-mlbtv"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}