Offseason Companion

Derek Zumsteg

Last year, thousands of baseball fans inadvertently became football fans during the long and hard offseason. This is a tragedy that strikes every year, resulting in hordes of once-fans who now mock baseball as 'too boring' (compared to football!). Since we here at Strikethree.com are concerned about you, the fan, we'd like to present some activities you can do in your own home to prevent this from happening.

Make a point to watch some baseball movies or read some baseball books. I'm not saying you should watch "Bull Durham" every week, but if you rent "The Natural" one week and read Bill James' Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame (available at fine bookstores everywhere) over a month, you'll be a little better informed about the game and less likely to think "Hey, Saints vs. Colts -- there's a game with possible playoff implications!"

Did you buy some season previews? Sit down and flip through them and re-evaluate them with the season over. Did they see that the Orioles were going to collapse because they were bad, or did they just copy over last season's standings and tweak teams one or two places? Were their player predictions clear or did many read "if healthy, could return to his 1995 form" or something similar? Did they make a lot of their team predictions based on intangibles or were they correct? It's paying attention to things like these which will make next year's purchases much cheaper.

Obsess over your fantasy team. What went right and what went wrong? Did you foresee your strengths and weaknesses? How much of that can you blame on not reading the right annuals? Did you really get any enjoyment out of playing in a fantasy league this year, and was it worth all the time and money you put into it? Which players do you think you should trade, and to who, and for who? Have you used a spreadsheet to build predictions of next year's performances? That's a week of work right there.

Follow offseason trades and signings. Is your team a mover or being shaken down? This will help you to determine what you should start brewing.

Learn to home-brew. It's not expensive, it's fun, and you'll want to get through a couple batches before you settle into working on the brew you'll be quaffing this season. Here's a sample reference chart:

• 90-100+ wins: A light, easy-drinking celebratory ale (3% alcohol or so)
• 75-90 wins: A slightly heavier ale that suits the wins and the heartbreak losses
• 65-75 wins: A darker beer, maybe something in a hefeweisen or an IPA.
• 55-65 wins: Porters and stouts (say, about an 8%)
• 35-55 wins: Barley wines and malt liquors (8-12%)
• Mariners, other disaster area teams: double and triple-bock beers with alcohol content exceeding 10% (what season?)

Write a couple of letters. Ask your local newspaper for intelligent baseball writers in the coming season, ones who don't have imaginary conversations in print or bait opposing players (Kravitz [spit]), who understand that on-base percentage is more important than batting average, and who are willing to question stupid moves the team makes.

Write your team. Tell 'em you go to all their games and you're tired of them acting like fools and you'll stay home and watch WCW if they don't shape up and stop paying the wrong players wrong amounts of money so they can lose 90 games with a veteran lineup. Express yourself well and you'll likely get some kind of response out of both of them. Write Larry Dierker and Gary Hunsicker fan mail.

Use all this spare time to learn to program and create a really good baseball game. Get together with your friends and try it.

Follow the intricacies of the basketball strike. This is what baseball faces in the near future, except that the players won't have the option of decertifying the union and playing without a contract. I've gone over this before, but baseball doesn't have a good labor deal and despite the season-long hand holding it's unlikely to get one. This may relate to the part about drinking; if there's no baseball and all we can do is watch whatever's on TNT, I for one could use something to drink in abundance.

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about the author

Derek Zumsteg would like it to be known that he is not responsible for the box of live dung beetles that Bob Kravitz recently received in the mail. Honest. Claim responsibility at dmz@strikethree.com.