July is a month filled with many contradictions. It is national ice cream month and national pickle month. It is hot in most of the United States and Europe, and it is cold in San Francisco and Australia. It is a time of constancy in baseball as teams have established baselines of performance and also a time of change in baseball as the trade deadline approaches.
Then, there is both the brightness and the blight of the MLB All-Star Week. It is a brightness because of the event itself. Regardless of the home field advantage conundrum and interleague play, there's always something fun about seeing the players in different caps and uniforms on the field. The first five innings are always a fun time....then comes the darkness (like Chase Utley's 2015 season, there's the tie-in to the picture you were all waiting for).
The last 4 innings are a roster parade, barely resembling a baseball game, but then comes the worst part. There are two days without baseball afterwards! When did this change happen? It was bad enough that the Wednesday after the all-star game was a veritable black hole of fan listlessness. It has spread to another day to torture the obsessed baseball fan.
I could feel myself going through withdrawal. My hands were shaking, and my eyes were constantly engaged on the scoreboard, hoping that one of the games on the schedule would go live. It was not to be. Some other symptoms that I exhibited during these days:
1. Starting saying "it's a long drive to...." whenever I got in the car.
2. Laid out a home set of clothes and away set of clothes for myself before going to work, depending on which site I was going to.
3. Drew the Phillies logo on the wall using finger paint.
4. When I ordered frozen yogurt, I got 9 pieces of each topping.
5. Played catch with a dog wearing a glove
6. Found tree branches on the ground and carved them into bats of various sizes.
7. Every time I took a walk, I would count to 90 and then begin again, keeping track of the number of runs I would score on the walk.
I'm just going to say that I was relieved when Friday came, and the summer routine returned.
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