This time of year, January/February, used to depress me. It wasn't the cold weather or the skies that were so often overcast, it was the loss of baseball that made me feel blue. The baseball season ended a couple of months before and it wouldn't start up again for a couple more months and that used to put me in the doldrums. I missed it. I still miss baseball a little bit. But it is easier for me now because I finally stopped caring about it a year ago after it was revealed that my once beloved Boston Red Sox had cheated their way to a record season in 2018. That's when I tossed away my baseball fandom for good. I had loyally stuck with baseball through labor strikes and the whole steroid cheating scandal. But when my team turned what had been their greatest season ever into a cheap cheat that was all about greed I had finally had enough.
When I did this radio show 19 years ago with Nicholas Dawidoff I was still a diehard baseball guy and I was so excited to talk to him about his incredible collection of baseball writing and his amazing grandfather, a guy who was also a Red Sox fan and apparently, a spectacular liar. In this interview Dawidoff describes how his grandfather derived endless amusement from pretending that he was a good friend of Ted Williams, the Red Sox slugger who in my opinion was the greatest hitter the sport has ever known. He didn't actually know Williams at all.
I may not miss baseball much anymore but I still miss talking about it.
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