Our theme for the month of June is “snapshots.” Writers were asked to submit a piece with a cover photo that they took or created.

To be honest, I’m surprised I waited two years before finally writing a baseball post.

I’d like to think it’s because I spend so much time in the baseball content creation world that I wanted to keep this space separate, but I know there’s a part of me that hasn’t wanted to completely out myself as the big baseball nerd that I am. 

If you only casually knew me at Calvin (or any other school/workplace, for that matter), you’d probably have no idea just how big of a baseball fan I am. You’d probably know I liked the sport, I might have even told you I’m obsessed, but you probably underestimated the degree of my obsession.

When I watch games, I’m on Baseball Savant monitoring pitch speeds, exit velocities, launch angles, xBAs, and xHRs. I’ll hop over to Fangraphs to see updated wRC+ and K% in between pitches, and occasionally I’ll look at WPA charts if a game is particularly back and forth.

I’m subscribed to Stathead and will run queries like, “Who allowed the most runs in a game and got the win?” Sometimes I’ll even turn what I find into videos or TikToks. When I’m not working my full-time job, I do research for a YouTube channel and write articles for a team blog. 

I love this sport.

But, at the same time, I’m always afraid baseball is becoming my identity. 

In a way, it always has been. There are people I haven’t seen in nearly twenty years, whose names I’ve forgotten, who still remember my love for the Atlanta Braves. I can name 87 of the 100 top-10 players of each season from 2000 to 2009, even though nearly every player has been out of the league for nearly a decade. 

Once I started going to school (homeschooling for eight years was brutal), it was easier to develop a personality that wasn’t flooding everyone with useless baseball facts. Moving to a time zone where games were over before I even had lunch also forced me away from an endless cycle of baseball.

Being in college offered more opportunities away from baseball, whether it was the late classes, homework, or the evening shifts to afford rent. 

Now, I feel Like I’ve returned to my childhood level of consumption. Out of college, working full-time with a part-time job in baseball, it’s hard to avoid.

I don’t want to pretend that during high school and college, I wasn’t in the baseball loop. I very much was. There was never a time when I wasn’t obsessed with baseball. Every year in October, I’d inevitably have my “this is so dumb why do I do this to myself” spiral when the Braves were eliminated from the playoffs. And every November I was immediately sucked in by “BREAKING: [Player Name] Signs with Atlanta Braves” headlines. I still watched as many games as I could, I just wasn’t able to watch as many games then as I am now. 

During the season, I default to Braves games. If I have no plans at 7:20, I’ll watch the Braves game. Three hours later, I’ll wonder where my day went. With fewer plans, I have more days like these. 

I often feel guilty for spending so much of my time on a sport I even think is kind of dumb but is letting it engulf my personality a bad thing?

I haven’t resorted to changing my profile pictures on social media of my favorite Braves moments (yet), and my fear that I’d die without seeing my team win a championship was squashed when they won the World Series in 2021.

The goal of not devolving into Frank the Tank is a low bar, but I also think it’s a good reminder to not take baseball too seriously. 

I’d like to stop feeling guilty for spending my nights watching my favorite team (after all, what’s the difference between this and watching TV shows?), but I need to stop relying on external systems to keep me from watching every single game.

Those systems don’t exist anymore.

2 Comments

  1. Parker Yeo

    New profile pic soon?

    Reply
  2. Phil Rienstra

    I genuinely admire this level of investment in any sport, I think it’s awesome.

    Reply

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