A few weeks ago I made the decision to follow Major League Baseball again after a significant lapse. I stopped watching baseball after the last strike which was in 1994. I was disgusted by the greed and hubris during that whole affair and decided to turn my summer attentions elsewhere. In all fairness to MLB I should also confess that this was about the time that our children’s activities began to ratchet up several notches so my decision was in sync with my need to attend a variety of  youth sports activities that did include several years of baseball.

I have enjoyed watching the Reds play on television this year. And thanks to satellite radio in my car and the MLB app on my droid, I can listen to every game played this season. This is quite a progression from my childhood days when I listened to Joe Nuxhall and Marty Brennaman on a small transistor radio which I had to hold next to the screen in my window to provide the extra antennae strength I needed to receive the transmission.

Baseball can provide hints to a lot of lessons in life. Every team loses a fair amount of games so over the course of a 162 game season there is the requirement to keep perspective and develop a belief in the bigger picture.  Each at bat is an exercise in patience and judgement.  There is a stat for keeping track of fielding mistakes which puts the drive for perfection in painful perspective.

I recently attended a game between the Reds and Cubs at historic Wrigley Field. While I wasn’t rooting for the home team, subtle in my cheering of course, I was able to have a nice conversation with the person sitting next to me about the teams and the game. Try doing that at an NBA game.

All in all, I am content with Major League Baseball’s return to my life and I wonder who has been the worse for wear by it’s absence. Like most instances of broken relationship I have probably diminished my own life by relegating MLB to my occasional attentions rather than making it more a part of my life. And isn’t that true about most grudges we carry. We boycott friends and relatives hoping they will feel the sting of our absence but the reality is that we more often than not hurt ourselves more than we hurt anyone else.

And so, baseball, I’m back. I hope you’ve noticed but I suspect you haven’t. I am, however, pretty sure my life is a little richer for letting you back in.