Baseball and Players

My enjoyment of baseball began when I was about 8 years old. The summers after 3rd and 4th grade I played with the boys on the Little League baseball team. My proudest moment was the last game of that second year when I hit a double after frankly being afraid to hit the ball all season. I was awarded Most Improved Player.

In the past two years I have had the fortunate experience of living in Phoenix, Arizona. The even more fortunate experience comes every March when half the MLB teams come to Phoenix for spring training. It is by far the best month in Phoenix.
                     85 degree weather...
                                            sunshine...
                                                      green grass...
                                                                     autographs...
Because of the spring training facilities, Phoenix has become a baseball hub. You see, not everybody makes it to the big leagues. From my understanding, some of the players in the minors stick around for some additional training after the month of March.

I had the opportunity to meet one such player at my birthday party at the SandBar in May.  A few of my friends and I were out on the dance floor. I make eye contact with him and he comes over. He's tall. He's attractive. I soon learn that he's a minor league baseball player. He's got a few dance moves. This could work, I think.

I quickly learned few things from this first experience with a professional baseball player:

1) If he has no pride in the franchise for which he plays, he probably doesn't have much pride in anything else,
2) If he tells you he's an atheist on the dance floor....just why would anybody say that on the dance floor?
3) If he can't remember your name after 4 attempts (or even 1 for that matter), he has no intention of ever remembering your name,
4) If the only contact he leaves you with is a screenname for a social networking site, he might need to work on a few social skills, and
5) If he tells you he just wants to take you home with him, run the other way.

Which is what I did.

I'm not looking for a one night stand fellas. I don't care if you're a minor league player, the MVP of the National League, or that cute guy at the bar, that's not the way it works in my book. I'm convinced that baseball players are as different as any other group of people, and that this one baseball player doesn't represent them all. I hope I'm right.