Why This Whole Playoff Thing Matters to Me

This is the first time in my life I've lived in a city with a major league ball team. I grew up in a city with a AAA farmteam for the Mets, the Tidewater (now Norfolk) Tides. (Pretty good team, by the way.)

During the 11 years I lived outside Washington, D.C., we were completely baseball-free. Not that the city didn't try, you understand, but the Nationals didn't come from Montreal until this past year. And, no, rooting for Baltimore is not the same, especially if you lived in Virginia, as I did.

For two of the six years I lived in Texas, my town was home to the minor league Lubbock Crickets (named in memory of Buddy Holly, of course.) A good team--they won their league championship their first year out--but due to financial reasons, the entire division (Texas-Louisiana League) was folded into the Central Baseball League and the team disappeared into the Southwestern dust.

So now I'm here. I finally have a major league team to root for. And after the banner year of 2004, it's do or die today. I'm just hoping we do. But if we die--well, there's always next year (and the next, and the next, and the next). I catch on fast. I've learned to be hopeful and loyal, because, well--that's my job now.