It’s just a fantasy

Major League Baseball is in full swing and the promise of a new season has everyone filled with high hope for their favorite team.

My parents were born and raised in Cleveland, but the Indians teams of my youth were impossible to enjoy. Year after year they underperformed and underwhelmed. Player transactions seemed designed to strengthen their rivals. They had two winning seasons – barely – in the 1970s, and only one, again barely, in the 1980s. That’s more than 20 years of futility during my formative years. It was difficult to be an avid fan.

This one belongs to the Reds

So I grew up a fan of The Big Red Machine. In the mid 1970s I’d listen to the Cincinnati Reds broadcast on 700 WLW Cincinnati with Marty Brennaman and Joe Knuxhall describing the action. Every game seemed so exciting and the Reds just kept on winning. Some nights I’d fall asleep during the broadcast with the little earbud from my transistor radio still in my ear and wake up in the dead of the morning to static; other times, I’d wake up after sunrise and discover a dead battery. This was a disaster because cash flow was limited and batteries were difficult to come by in my house.

The 1980s didn’t start well for the Cincinnati Reds, but the second half of the decade they were perennial winners. The Reds surprised everyone in 1990 by winning another Major League Baseball World Series title with a sweep of the heavily-favored Oakland Athletics.

Don’t mess with Texas

In the 1990s I went through many changes as my career and my family dominated my attention. I transitioned to what I’d describe as a more casual fan. I didn’t watch many games, but I was aware of how my teams were performing.

When I moved my family to Texas in 1993, I started to pay attention to the Texas Rangers. After going to a couple of games at The Ballpark in Arlington, I became a fan. The move to Austin in 1998 didn’t affect my allegiance.

Living in a fantasy world

Even joining a Fantasy league a couple of years ago hasn’t changed my affections. I do appreciate individual players more and recognize their value to their teams. Still, I root for teams first: Texas, Cincinnati and Cleveland. When my fantasy players compete against my favorite teams, I cheer for individual success, but I want my favorite teams to win. When my favorite teams go head-to-head, I just enjoy the games.

So it’s a new season, I have a new fantasy team and I have hope. How many players hail from my favorite teams? Three, and they are all from the Texas Rangers: Mike Napoli, Elvis Andrus and Colby Lewis. What can I say? I can watch almost every Rangers game on television. My Ohio teams are rarely broadcast in this region.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to check the scores and my fantasy team stats. Maybe this will be my year.

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