David Past 50

In celebration of a long-anticipated Opening Day, I've confined this month's blog topics to the subject of baseball. The Mets won 148 games and lost 105 in the season and a half the indefatigable Julio Cesar Robles Franco graced their roster. They are 286-297 since. Coincidence? You decide. Franco began his major league career in 1982 and remained active until 2007. Along the way, he played for seven different teams (two of them twice) and wore six different uniform numbers. He routinely played winter ball in his native Dominican Republic and also played a few regular seasons in the Japanese and Mexican Leagues during three separate sabbaticals from MLB. In essence, he played year-round baseball for 25 years. Remembered best as a utility man, he was once a star middle infielder batting .341 and scoring 108 runs in his best season and driving in 98 in another. More importantly, he seemed to love the game the way fans imagine they would if they had the talent to play.

In celebration of a long anticipated Opening Day, I've confined this month's blog topics to the subject of baseball. “I love baseball,” said Woody Allen. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s just beautiful to watch.” Thomas Boswell went a bit deeper and wrote of, “… adapting the spirit to baseball’s deliberate speed and its demand for heightened awareness of detail.” He added that there is, “a coexistence of total relaxation and keen anticipation”; which I regard as the closest anyone has ever come to defining the essence of the true baseball fan. Baseball is like no other game. It is unique in its symmetry and in its artistry. The game is so flawlessly designed that a ball hit in the hole, fielded cleanly and thrown accurately by the shortstop will result in a one-step call at first base – regardless of whether the players are 9-year-olds on 45 foot sandlot bases or major leaguers in the seventh game of the World Series. The game is also unique in the madd