3/22/2006 - Amazin'!

I have decided to follow (somewhere between "ignore" and "root for") the New York Mets.  Why?  I recently spent some time with my parents, during which I discovered that my father isn't really into baseball this season.  Not that he doesn't like it, just that he hasn't had time for it.  While this is not, technically, a crime, it is very sad to me.  Were it not for my father, I would not be the sports fan I am today, and I would be missing out.  Was it not my father who took me Shea and Veterans so many years ago, so we could root for the likes of Doc, Straw, HoJo and El Sid?  Was it not my father who taught me how to keep score (and instilled in me importance of watching the pitch count)?  Was it not my father who bought me "Pure Baseball," the best book on baseball that I have ever read?

In fact, it was.

So, this season, I shall expand my horizons by watching a few Mets games (on mlb.com, of course), reading the NYT (Zumbrano appears to be having issues) and listening to Mets podcasts (haven't yet -- too much basketball).  If my fiendish plan works, I shall engage my father in many a conversation about the upwards bound Mets and their likely post-season performance.  How often does one get to listen to sports radio and engage in filial piety at the same time?

Side note - starting with this post and for the next 2 weeks, you will notice much less footage at the bottom of the post.  On the 21st of March I became quite sick (as was my wife -- we were a pair).  I had intended to go back to work on the 22nd but rather found myself lying in bed all day.  Somehow I managed to pick a few thousand steps, but I really wasn't the same for a good couple of weeks.  Enough about that.

4,600 steps today.  Ah-choo.