Resumption of play

Despite the fact that this month is already nearly a third over, I am going to go out on a limb and say that I will still make at least some token attempt to keep the 2013 theme months going and celebrate BASEBALL MONTH in April. Right about now is really as good as it tends to get in my household, at the very outset of the season. Despite the fact that every game will add up and weigh the same in the standings in late September, April is far too early to get too invested in streaks or stumbles either way. The pennant race is underway but totally up for grabs, and it’s about as mathematically impossible as it gets for any team to be in serious trouble, let alone eliminated. The standings change rapidly, and every day (or night, as the case may be) is a potentially landscape-altering thrillride. One can scarcely stand the excitement.

And, of course, as of this writing the Orioles and the Yankees have yet to play each other in the regular season. They’ll remedy that this coming weekend, but for now there have been no AL East battle lines drawn under my roof. In point of fact, at the moment the O’s and Yankees have identical records, and the O’s are in the midst of a series against the Red Sox, so I am of course rooting hard for both squads. It can’t last, but it’s good while it does.

Not that my wife and I really have time to enjoy the national pastime at the moment, with a new baby who, I feel it bears repeating, is not one of our pre-existing children reverted back to infancy but is, yes, a brand new product of our union above, beyond and on top of the two who have been co-conspiratorially running us ragged for the past couple years. It is all still a work in progress, one which tends to find us looking semi-blearily at one another around 9 p.m. (maybe half an hour after we once again belatedly get the four-and-a-half year old to bed) and mumbling about how we should get ourselves to bed before too long. My wife does find baseball supremely relaxing to fall asleep to, so that’s a plus. But really investing ourselves emotionally and intellectually in nine consecutive innings is going to have to wait a while. Thank goodness for SportsCenter in the meanwhile.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I recently found out about some work requirements which entail a certain amount of independent study on my part for a professional certification exam (more on that next week) which is no doubt going to cut into my pleasure-reading time. And that in turn puts my original plans to read and review sports essays or baseball-oriented novels this month in greater peril still. Nevertheless, I will give it a go. Who knows, the theme of July or August may very well end up being SUMMER SCHOOL, wherein I catch up on all the stuff I failed (to get around to) earlier in the year.