Hope Is More Fun Than Logic

I read this comment ("Hope is more fun than logic.") from a reader of a Star Tribune article this morning, and it made me understand why it's so fun to be a baseball fan - specifically a Twins fan.  I love football, but the reason I love baseball even more is that every day is a new day.  If the Vikings lose, it ruins my week.  If the Twins lose, I have only hours to dwell on the loss before the next game.  The fact that the season is 162 gives the baseball fan a reason to think that anything is possible.  Logic makes everything black and white and eliminates possibilities, dreams, and a reason to be a fan.  Hope is fun and is the reason a baseball fan watches their last place team play every night, trying to figure out what would need to happen to still win the division.


Logic says that having the worst record in baseball on June 6th means the Twins have no chance to come back this year.  It says that having Drew Butera, Matt Tolbert, and Alexi Casilla in a normal starting lineup would make it impossible to win many games.  Logic says that the number of players - star players at that - the Twins have had on the disabled list this year makes it highly unlikely that we could compete (Mauer, Thome, Slowey, Perkins, Mijares, Nishioka, Young, Nathan, Liriano, Kubel, Repko, who am I missing?).  Logic says that needing to go 66-37 over the last 4 months of the season here just to get to 88 wins (that's the AL Central magic number if you didn't know) is out of the question.

Hope, on the other hand, says that every night in baseball, every team has a chance to win.  One night at a time, it is possible to go 66-37.  Hope says that our run of injuries may be coming to an end in the next week or two, and that injury bug can go ahead and attack another team.  Hope says that there is no way a team that has won as many division titles in the last 10 years with many of these same players can stay down for this long.  Hope sees a 4 game sweep in Kansas City and says "Get ready for the best 4 months of baseball you've ever seen!"  Hope sees Alexi Casilla go crazy and thinks that he might just have that fire lit under him again.  Hope is what being a sports fan of any kind is all about.  The great thing about baseball is that there is no time limit in a game.  There is always a chance to come back until that 27th out is made.  Every game there is just as good of a chance the Twins will win as any other.

Until the Twins have been mathematically eliminated, I choose the fun route to being a Twins fan - hope.

As I write this, my boy Denard Span has been inserted in tonight's lineup hitting 3rd.  I love it!