Summer Dreamin'

People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
— Rogers Hornsby

Some folks get their new calendars and check to see what day their birthday is. Others, write in birthdays, anniversaries, maybe even pencil in their vacation time. Me? I get out all the schedules of all my favorite teams and open up a new spreadsheet in Excel. And then I plan out my summer weekends, trying to make sure that I can still see at least one ballgame every weekend from April to October.

In 2005, I went to 61 games in six states, seeing games in the Can-Am League, the American League, the International League, the Atlantic League, and the Hall of Fame game in Cooperstown, NY. In 2006, the tally fell to 59 games in four states and the District of Columbia, but I got to see games in the National League, the American League, the Carolina League, the Can-Am League, the Eastern League, and the South Atlantic League.

For 2007, I want to hit the 70-game mark, and I think I can do it while putting the Atlantic League back into the mix, and perhaps even the N.Y. Penn League.Sure, that sounds like an arbitrary goal, perhaps even trivial, but it's what gets me through the winter: The thought of 600+ innings across 60+ plus nights and afternoons.