I'm a baseball fan.

I'm a baseball fan. I used to pretty much hate all sports. But two things happened. I began reading the Wall Street Journal. I think I read it every day from 1992-1995, and I've read it regularly though not as often, since then. Why is reading a business newspaper important to my transformation into a basball fan? Because it contains the best sports writing of any publication in America. (It also has the best Christmas Eve editorial page of any newspaper ever. Among the always superb essays is the traditional In Hoc Anno Domini. And you can't go wrong spending your book-buying dollar by their book reviews, either.)

George Will writes for the Washington Post. But sometimes his work winds up in the Wall Street Journal. Usually he doesn't write about sports. Most often he writes about politics. But read this. And this. And this! That is great writing! And all of the sports writing in the Wall Street Journal is as good as that. So, thanks to good writing, I began to see sports as something more than a waste of time and money. I wasn't a fan, but the foundation of fan-hood had been laid.

What really made me a fan was following the Giants 2001 season. I had married a woman with season tickets and we went to every other home game together. Here are 9 things I learned:
1) Garlic fries are fabulous
2) The game of Baseball is not about one game. It is about the whole season.
3) There are no bad seats in what should be called Giants Ballpark.
4) It is fun to yell stuff at players and embarrass your wife.
5) Benny Santiago doesn't get a hit in the first 2 innings? Hey, there's always the 3rd.
6) Singing Take me Out to the Ball Game with thousands of other people during the 7th Inning Stretch is fun. (There is not enough public singing in America. I blame the record industry and radio for that.)
7) Its fun to get all judgemental on Barry Bonds, who after hitting the ball likes to watch and see if it is going to be a home run before he starts running to 1st.
8) Sometimes, the people in the stands around you are as entertaining as the players on the field. Like one time when a guy infront of me pulled out an electric razor and gave himself the most vigerous shave I have ever seen.
9) It takes about one inning to walk around the ballpark. And its a nice walk, too. Especially, out by right field where you can look at all of the boats in McCovey Cove.

Baseball season is well underway. Try to make it to a few games. Eat some garlic fries. Get a tan. Drink a cold beer. Watch grown men running around in funny clothes. Its better than almost anything else you could be doing.