Rose-Tinted Baseball

I was really hoping that just starting a new blog post would give me some ideas. I only have my best ideas when I'm completely unable to write them down (typically in the shower or in the car).

I've decided that I'm entirely too topical about blog posts. Usually I end up coming here to vent about some current issue that's bugging me, but I'm tired of doing that (and there are too many issues bugging me at any given time). I'm putting away my soapbox, at least for the time being.

I was sitting on the couch last night, just listening to some music and really wanting to go to Cook Park to go on the swings. That's something I haven't done in quite a while. It would be like a throwback to summers past, when I spent a lot of my time at Cook Park.

Actually, that reminds me of something that's really quite sad: I don't miss announcing at Colonie Little League. I mean, in a sentimental sense I do. I used to really love going to the park and watching the games. But I'm glad I got out, and I actually think I stayed at least a year too long. That place is a depressing shell of what it used to be. By external appearances, it's just dandy; there's a nice new scoreboard, some bigger bleachers, fresh uniforms that have individualized player names on the back. But that's all there is to it. It's shallow. It's evident that no one cares. The level of competitiveness is pathetic. Few children are actually learning how to play baseball. Player participation is low, which is obvious from the number of teams that have been cut over just a single year. In 2004 there were ten teams in the Major division, and eight in the Intermediates. Now there are six and four, respectively. The Pee-Wee division used to have kids pitching, striking out batters by their own effort, or walking them. Now the coaches have to step in to help, once the pitcher throws four balls. From time to time they would make double plays and hit home runs. Eight- and nine-year-old kids, and their coaches, used to bring their A-game to the field. And this is not just nostalgia. I played in the league for eight years, and stuck around to watch for the next twelve. I've seen what kids are capable of doing on the field.

Contrary to what might seem like common sense, high-scoring games are the mark of really bad teams, not really good ones. I can name exactly one game where an incredibly dominant team played a very good team and won in a massive blowout, and that was in 2009 when Vellano Brothers beat VFW by a score of something like 21-3. And that was due to no fault of VFW's; Vellano Brothers simply had some of the most terrifyingly good hitters I have ever seen, and their pitching staff was brutally effective.

It's not like that anymore. That's the glorious past, something I don't expect to ever see again. In some ways, this is a weird parallel for how life feels, though not necessarily how it goes. I know we tend to look at the past through rose-tinted glasses. (The difference, of course, is that I have every single scorebook I kept between 2005 and 2011. I have physical records that paint a picture of the decline of Colonie baseball. It's not just my memory reconstructing things differently than they actually were.) But it's still sad, and sometimes I really do wonder if the unreachable past really was the best life was ever going to get. And I'm not just speaking on a personal scale. I don't like a lot of what's going on in the world around me. Things are downright discouraging. I honestly don't know what I can do to make things look better for moving forward.

I want to just go on the swings, like I used to do, but I know that won't change a thing. Trying to emulate the past won't just bring it back. I'm unhappy. I'm bored. I want something more out of life, like that feeling of moving up in the world that I got in the summer of 2008 when I first worked a full-time job. I want some...thing, some ineffable thing that will make me feel like I'm actually living, not just coasting along from one day to the next, ever anticipating the coming weekend. And no, I'm not depressed. I'm just dissatisfied. Restless. Unfulfilled.

I'm open to suggestions, by the way. You know, if somebody actually reads this.