{"id":145107,"date":"2026-01-25T22:05:57","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T03:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/?p=145107"},"modified":"2026-01-25T22:05:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T03:05:57","slug":"dont-despair-baseball-season-around-the-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/dont-despair-baseball-season-around-the-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t despair, baseball season around the corner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The early 20th<\/sup> century baseball star Rogers Hornsby was asked what he did in the off season. \u201cPeople ask me what I do in winter when there\u2019s no baseball. I\u2019ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

As winter drags on, we can all appreciate Hornsby\u2019s sentiment. As I write, a forty mile per hour wind is blowing in below zero temps. Whatever charm winter had, (\u201cOh look, the mosquitoes are gone\u201d), faded with the passing of the Christmas season.<\/p>\n

Like the weather, the news has also been bad. The divisions in our nation are wide. So, I\u2019ve decided to write about something we all can agree with. Winter sucks and we can\u2019t wait till spring.<\/p>\n

Soon, they\u2019ll play the Super Bowl. That will put a merciful end to the football season that started in summer. Every sport has stretched its season to obscene lengths. Baseball in November, hockey in June, college football till whenever that ends. We know this is all about money. It is the beast we\u2019ve created.<\/p>\n

Regardless, when the Super Bowl ends and the Vince Lombardi Trophy is hoisted amid the confetti, I start thinking about baseball.<\/p>\n

We all need a happy place to go in our minds. Baseball is one of those. It is a pleasant diversion. We all need diversions. At least those of us who haven\u2019t been detained or jailed.<\/p>\n

I start with the Twins. Who\u2019s coming, who\u2019s going, who\u2019s had surgery, who\u2019s disgruntled, who\u2019s been arrested? You can see this is an arduous task, and that\u2019s just one major league team. There are thirty-two. There are rosters, starting lineups, and depth charts to analyze.<\/p>\n

That takes most of February. It would go faster, but Pam keeps insisting I help around the house and occasionally shower.<\/p>\n

In a few weeks, Spring Training will begin in warm places. We\u2019ll see pictures of players playing catch and taking grounders. The grass will be green. It will be an enchanting glimpse into our future. We can delight in imagining the day we step outside in a T-shirt. Everyone who played the game, even poorly like me, can feel the ball in an imaginary glove.<\/p>\n

Once Spring Training games begin, there will be box scores. For fans, box scores are little novels. The game that was played yesterday exists in a two by three-inch matrix of names and numbers. Once box scores appear, I\u2019ll.spend about equal time obsessing over those, the weather, and the markets.<\/p>\n

That leads to Opening Day. Note that Opening Day is capitalized. It\u2019s not exactly a holy day. But it\u2019s more than a holiday.<\/p>\n

By Opening Day, I will have convinced myself that the Twins will win the World Series. I have done that for sixty-plus years in a row. That\u2019s my heart. My head says the Dodgers or Yankees will win it again. And again and again.<\/p>\n

There has always been disparity between Major League teams\u2019 payrolls. It has reached crazy levels. Every winter the Yankees and Dodgers sign the best free agents. The Twins sign people like Vidal Brujan. Every description of Vidal begins with \u201cversatile.\u201d That means he can play around the field. It also means he\u2019s not that good.<\/p>\n

The Big Leagues get a lot of attention. But that\u2019s just a part of the baseball universe. It\u2019s also the most expensive. I\u2019ll go to Target Field a few times this summer. Between ticket, parking, and $15 beers, I\u2019ll drop a hundred easily.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, there is baseball at a more local and intimate level. I can go out to Stark or Leavenworth, see some friends, stand by the fence, have a burger and a couple of beers, and not spend a twenty.<\/p>\n

I want to give a shoutout to the people who take care of the glorious ballfields in southern Minnesota. School ball in the spring morphs into townball in the summer. It\u2019s all dependent on volunteers who spend hours on a mower or putting down foul lines.<\/p>\n

There is whole parade of people generous with their time who make baseball happen. Coaches, umpires, concession stand workers, scoreboard operators, moms who wash uniforms. It\u2019s an army of people, mostly unpaid and underappreciated. I can\u2019t pay you here, but I can appreciate you.<\/p>\n

As I stare out my window, snowflakes have begun falling on the frozen landscape. It is taking a real force of imagination to picture green grass out there. Every few days someone tells me the days are getting longer. I suppose that\u2019s true, but I\u2019ll reserve excitement till I\u2019m not eating breakfast and supper in the dark.<\/p>\n

Until the sun returns, I\u2019ll shuffle thoughts of baseball around in my head. I\u2019m thinking of all the ballfields we have around here. Near me, there are venerable ballparks in towns. Springfield, Sleepy Eye, New Ulm have fields with nearly a century or more of pitching and catching and batting.<\/p>\n

People who move here are amazed that in between towns, we have real Fields of Dreams that aren\u2019t movie sets. A short drive from me are Leavenworth, Essig, Stark, and Sigel.<\/p>\n

I remember talking to Otis Loose about baseball. Otis was a good ball player for the New Ulm Brewers in the Fifties. He went on to be County Auditor and passed in 2004.<\/p>\n

Otis told me that there was a spot west of New Ulm where there is a rise on the road. On a summer night, he would get out of his car and could see the glow from as many as five ballparks on the horizon.<\/p>\n

He was talking about how important baseball is in Brown County. When he said that, it was with a sparkle in his eye. What a magical image, the beautiful game of baseball all around you, warm illumination in the dark.<\/p>\n

I never asked Otis where exactly that was. Maybe I\u2019m meant to get in my car this summer and find that rise. Since then, Essig has added lights. With the right night, maybe a guy can see six or seven ballparks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The early 20th century baseball star Rogers Hornsby was asked what he did in the off season. \u201cPeople ask me what I do in winter when there\u2019s no baseball. I\u2019ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.\u201d As winter drags on, we can all appreciate Hornsby\u2019s sentiment. As …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 14:14:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145127,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145107\/revisions\/145127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}