My New (Baseball) Year’s Resolution – Watch it Live!

I have a confession to make to all of you. My main New Year’s resolution this year was sports related, and it wasn’t to pick up the ol’ glove and become a weekend warrior again, or to stop spending so much money on my teams (though, it probably should have been), or anything as normal or cliche’ as that.

No, my resolution is to actually watch the games as they happen.

Let me explain.

While DVR and Twitter have added so much to our viewing of sports here in the modern age, between replays at our fingertips and virtual bars at which to “watch” the games with hundreds of people we don’t even know (and some we do), this technology has also allowed wimps (like me) to cop out of the moment; to let others bear the responsibility of seeing what goes on in real time.

More times than I can count, just last baseball season, I would hit pause on my TV during a crucial moment and constantly refresh Twitter to see if I need be elated or crushed. Two examples come quickly to mind, one good and one bad.

The bad one: Josh Donaldson’s walk-off home run off Zach Britton in Oakland. I had paused my TV, and I believe it was our own Andrew Stetka‘s tweet that I saw first, telling me that the A’s had disposed of the Birds that night.

The good one: Chris Davis’ pinch-hit walk-off home run against the Chicago White Sox at Camden Yards. Again, I had paused the live action, and this time it was MASN’s Roch Kubatko who first alerted me that Crush had won the game for the good guys.

Of course, in the former case I immediately turned the TV off, while in the latter I hit rewind a dozen times to watch again and again. Still, it wasn’t the same as if I’d watched it live, was it?

I submit that it was not.

Both moments, I did not see in real time. And these are not isolated incidents. I’d guess that over the last several seasons, I’ve copped out in big moments when I was able much more often than not.

I had the chance to view in real time, but I chose not to. Instead of euphoria or despair, genuine emotions elicited by the fortunes of my team, I experienced slightly muted feeling. A light palm pressed against my heartstrings, shielding me from a bit of heartache in some instances, while also robbing me of veritable ecstasy in others.

My wife shoots me dirty looks that I very much deserve. “Aren’t you watching the game?” she’ll ask, as I pause the TV and focus my attention on my laptop or phone screen.

“Yeah,” I’ll sheepishly respond.

“So, why aren’t you watching it?”

“I…uh…” /refresh /refresh /refresh

She rolls her eyes and returns to her book, wondering why the hell she married such a goof, while I similarly wonder what possesses me to lay so much of my happiness in the hands of 25 men I’ll very likely never share so much as a casual conversation with.

Ridiculous, I know.

It’s not just TV either. I was at ALCS Game 2 – the Delmon Young game. Seated high (like, last row) in the left field bleachers, I had closed my eyes and was simply listening for the reaction of the crowd as Joakim Soria tossed his first offering to Delmon. At the roar, I opened my eyes of course, and saw the ball fall in front of J.D. Martinez and then disappear, along with him, behind the left field wall hundreds of feet under me, as Oriole after Oriole crossed home plate.

But still…although I was there, I have to, as painful as it is, admit to myself that I kinda missed it.

At other times I’ve been known to pull my O’s cap in front of my face and watch the TV/live action through the tiny holes in the lid.

It’s the typical sports fan’s delusion – that somehow what we are wearing while watching the game, or what chair we watch it from, or even what snacks we consume during the action will in some way matter. That we can, in whatever minuscule way, influence the outcome in our favor.

All nonsense, of course, but we sports fans are nothing if not superstitious.

I remember one occasion, during Game 1 of the 2012 ALDS. I was in Kansas City with our Editor-in-Chief Tony Lombardi, having just watched the Ravens defeat the Chiefs at Arrowhead earlier that day. We were at a bar watching the Birds, and I was, as usual, watching the game through my hat. Tony, having never witnessed this silliness before, smiled and pointed at me, saying to his friend, “That’s passion!”

Yeah, perhaps. But it’s also quite asinine.

I tell you all this not because I’m proud of it, but because I want you to hold me responsible. I’m laying my resolution out there because I want all of you to remind me to WATCH THE DAMN GAME.

It’s likely going to help put me in an early grave, as I tend to live and die with every single pitch during the season. In the postseason? Hoo boy, don’t even get me started; it’s a show, to say the least. I’m going to need to research and apply some advanced meditation techniques to calm myself during the big moments in games, and I may even need to emply a “Clockwork Orange” (appropriate) setup:

but this is something I really want to do – to keep my damn eyes open and on the action as it happens.

I know I’m not the only one who does this – I’ve seen Lila, for instance, tweet often that she “can’t watch” as the innings of a close game go on.

Already this year, I’ve slipped a bit. Though the Ravens-Steelers playoff game was in January, and therefore fell under the jurisdiction of this resolution, it was just too much for me to take; I spent much of that game in a dark hallway a floor above the only TV in the house that was turned on, listening to the reactions of my family and friends, then sprinting down the steps to join them in celebration time and again.

Like I said – this is a problem.

And it’s one that I’m determined to overcome. Therefore, starting on Monday, if the O’s and Rays are locked up late – or, hopefully, if there is a bases loaded situation for either team in say, the 4th inning (I need some “warm-up tosses”) – I vow to not reach for the remote to pause the game. I will keep my eyes open, glued to the screen.

This will test every fiber of my fandom to accomplish. I’ll need each of you to e-hold my hand through it, and I certainly cannot promise to not relapse at times. What I can do though, is to promise to do my damndest to live up to this resolution.

Alright. Deep breath.

Let’s watch the O’s.