Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball

Is it Still Baseball Season?

I ask because the Sox haven't played since Sunday, and I'm pretty sure it's not the all-star break. In the interim, there's been lots of sturm and drang about how the Sox are going to fiddle with their rotation to deal with the rainouts and to prepare for the Yankee series that begins tomorrow. I hope the Sox players are less focused on the Yankee series than the Nation is, or else - as Sidney Ponson correctly notes - the Orioles are going to treat the Sox tonight like the FCC treats dissenting, creative or original voices; by crushing them mercilessly.

In search of ideas and issues with which to distract myself from this numbing, baseball-free landscape of rain and boredom, I note with interest Whit's review of the Hank Greenberg documentary. Not because I want to see it (I do), but because it reminds me once again of a tremendous connection that I continue to neglect. My wife has a good friend from college named Mitch Scherr, who is a Senior Producer with Major League Baseball Productions. An emmy-winning producer, at that, scoring a statue for his work on Cal Ripken's final season with the Orioles. I've met Mitch several times, broken bread with him, shared a bit of the grape with him, even talked baseball with him. He's a terrific guy - laid back, into baseball, sarcastically funny, and he's got one of the great jobs that a normal, sports-loving guy can have. He travels all over the country going to baseball games, talking to ballplayers, filming interviews, hanging out with big league managers and execs. He's given us several MLB DVDs that he's produced, all great work. And I sit here asking myself, why the hell haven't I leveraged this connection more? He lives in Brooklyn, so why haven't we hit him up for Yanks or Mets tix and made a weekend of it? Why haven't we called him to see when he's coming into town to get freebies to O's games? In short, what the hell is wrong with me, or, more accurately, with my wife?

The things you ponder when the rain takes away your fun.