True Confessions 2011

By Richard Rosen

Editor’s Note: It seems only fitting that the first post (well technically second) on the new Baseball Diary should be written by Richard Rosen, as he was the first person, besides me, to write an article for the original publication. (You can read his 1982 True Confessions at the Archive, where it’s also the first entry.) AND, of at least equal importance, he was the person who actually turned me into a baseball fan, but that’s a story for another time (that’s right, there’s MY true confession: I never watched baseball or any sport as a kid and underwent the conversion as an adult!) Unbidden, he has sent this along, and we hope there will be more in the weeks ahead.

Ah, Baseball Diary. Has it really been nearly 30 years since I wrote “True Confessions”? Lessee: 2011 minus 1982, yep, nearly 30. Well, it seems only fitting that I revisit this subject as my first submission, but this time with a slightly different slant. Back then the lame running joke was I didn’t want my yoga teacher to know about me collecting baseball cards, as if she acshully gave a hoot. In 1982 I’d been a student for less than 2 years, and I was trying to get some traction in the local community. Collecting baseball cards, the implication was, that if the word got out, it would throw my seriousness into question and I’d be seen as a faux yogi. Well, here I am today, and lemme tell ya, go ahead and put this on the front page of the Times for all I care. Did I ever get my yoga traction? I’m director of the Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, a contributing editor at Yoga Journal, I’ve written four books on yoga and countless articles. I could go on but you get the picture. I’ve got some extra traction if anybody out there needs some, though it won’t do you much good unless it’s somehow connected with yoga.

So my true confession this time doesn’t carry the weight it did last time, mostly because all my students know I’m a baseball fan and consider it just one more endearing quirk of their slowly mentally deteriorating teacher. But I have to tell you: I own an iPad and there’s this app.

Way back in 1957, the year I wrote about in my first true confession, there wasn’t much baseball on TV. Remember the Game of the Week? The announcers were Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese. The former was a Hall-of-Fame pitcher from Arkansas, the last one (at that time) to win 30 games in a season; the latter an eventual Hall-of-Fame shortstop who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and whose greatest achievement probably was his support of Jackie Robinson. I lived for that game back then, on my parents miniature (by today’s standards) black-and-white TV. When the Yankees were on, as they often were, being the perennial World Champs in the 50s and early 60s, there was nothing that could stop me from watching that game. I still vividly recall the incredible charge I would get from a full house at Yankee Stadium, the really old one, before the mid 70s renovation, with the right field foul pole, what, about 296 feet from home, and the Mick batting left-handed against some poor right-handed sucker on the mound. Now THOSE were the days.

Except they’re not anymore. Because there’s this app, MLB.com At Bat 11, which, for $115, gets you EVERY game EVERY DAY from the first pitch of opening day to the last pitch of the playoffs. Well akshully not every game, the locals are blacked out, so I don’t get the Giants or the A’s (no loss on the latter). BUT I do get every Yankee game (except when they’re pummeling the A’s) in glorious color, and so the first question I ask when I wake up in the morning is: what time are the they playing today? That way I can organize my time: get the stuff needing some concentration out of the way, then do the mechanical stuff I can do while the game is on. Do I miss the old days, the nervous anticipation of Saturday’s big game, the excitement of seeing players I only read about in the sports section, and the ultimate high of a Mantle homer at the roaring Stadium. Um, no, well maybe Mick a little, but now that I know what a jerk he was the shine is off the penny. No no no, gimme baseball EVERY day, flipping from one game to another, Prince Fielder whacking a homer, Troy Tulo what’s his name playing short for the Rockies, the Phillies starters, and best of all Boston being crushed by KC (never watch when they’re winning, which prob’ly means no World Series for me this year). True confession 2011? Pretty tame, but heck I'm nearly 30 years older. Oops, gotta go, Yanks are playing the Brewers at 4.