I love baseball. I grew up watching it with my dad who took me to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to see his beloved Dodgers play. Despite this sports DNA, my older brother rooted for the Giants. I was and am a diehard Yankee fan. My father said I was the only Yankee fan he ever loved.
This loyalty split was possible in my early childhood when New York fielded three viable baseball teams. Come October things heated up in our little den. That small TV box took a lot of verbal abuse as we yelled and cried as our favorite players hit home runs or struck out, taking our hopes for their teams’ entry into the World Series with them.
Yes, life repeats itself. It’s early October and I am married to an avid baseball fan, a man who went to college on a baseball scholarship and played on as many as five teams simultaneously as he aged into playing senior ball. He doesn’t merely love the game; he breathes baseball. He inhabits it, dressing in a uniform from the days of Honus Wagner. He multi-tasks baseball, watching three games at a time: on TV, on his iPad, and on his iPhone. Here’s Jim in fan-action mode
Did I mention that Honus/Jim is a Red Sox fan? He grew up in Rhode Island where the pull of the evil Red Sox Nation wafted over from not too far away Fenway Park. It enveloped him like smog and left him tainted. I write this aware of my hatred, not for the man but his team. I am, as I said, a diehard Yankee fan.
So it’s October 2017, not the 1950s, and we now sit watching the playoffs in a Miami Beach living room on a huge flat screen TV. Yes, Jim has his other two devices turned on, broadcasting the games we are not tuned into on the big screen. Two rules keep us safe in this admittedly hostile environment: no cursing at each other and no hitting.
The Yankees and Red Sox are both still battling it out with Cleveland and Houston. Jim and I have to co-exist. Fortunately, I have had early training in how to live with and love a Dodger fan. This helps me in October as I watch baseball with a man who worships the Red Sox. It’s a cult, and he is brainwashed. By November this hopefully will all be a memory, and we both will feel much better.
No, I don’t love football. Jim can root safely for his team by himself.
Sextysomething 
Wonderful!!!!!! U are the best. If the Red Sox stay in the hunt and the Yankees go down , will you join me in rooting for the Sox?!? I will root for the bombers if my beloved team goes down !!!🎶
Sent from my iPhone
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I can’t make any promises. So hard!!!!
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What an amazing portrait of baseball loving Jim. When he was in his teens he played on a team with his father. Father was an avid fan of baseball and attended every game Jim played. He was so proud of Jim’s prowess on the baseball field. Jim learned to play sandlot ball until he went to Jr or Sr high school before Pee Wee and Little Leagues and he did damned well. I have a picture of Jim when he was about 3 holding a bat and standing in a batting stance. How wonderful to have a passion like that! Thanks Jill, for your very accurate and funny picture of Jim
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Thnx so much, Sue, for adding info about Jim’s lifelong passion for the game. Your father would still be proud of his baseball viewing skills. I want to see that photo you mentioned.
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Must tell you: Houston has won the third game and the defeated Red Sox were eliminated from the American League playoffs. Poor Jim! He had to go lie down. Yankees play tonight. They have won no games against Cleveland and are in a must-win situation. Do or die. Go Yankees! Jim, be nice!
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