Raining in Baltimore

The weather was hot and humid, like every East Coast summer. But the Mets had a good weekend in Baltimore, hitting the baseball and pitching it too. Sweeping the Orioles to win their first series on the road this year had to feel good. It was certainly good for me to watch. It seems that however the Mets go, so goes my weekend. So it's been a good couple of weekends with this sweep and the one last week against Florida. Let's hope it continues with the series against the Yankees next weekend.

Baseball is summer, and no matter what else I may be doing, it occupies my mind. Whether my Mets are good or awful, they are mine. And my family's. We are a Mets household. It can be hard to catch the games, living in the West Coast time zone. The time change and the fact that not many of the games are broadcast locally. But fortunately an MLB.TV subscription, my iMac and my new flat screen make it almost like we were back home watching. Almost.

Other noteworthy sporting events this weekend? Well there's this little tournament going on in South Africa known as the World Cup. It's football (or soccer for us Americans) and it's the biggest sporting event in the World. You wouldn't know it most places you go around here, but we do have a team in the tournament. And playing the highly favored England team, we came out with a tie. I have to say, it was pretty exciting for a game that no one won. My many English friends were not too enthused that the U.S. tied the game on kind of a cheap goal. But the truth is, the goalie made a mistake and got beat. There was no poor officiating. And England didn't score again, thanks to the U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard. He took some hits and kept playing hurt. He was the hero of the game. After the quick first goal by England in the first 5 minutes, Howard held them off. And U.S. strikers had a few good shots on the England goal, a win would have been amazing, but in this case a tie looked like a victory. Who knew?

It struck me today as the Mets scored 5 off of Kevin Millwood in the first inning, that it was a tough day at work for him. Even though it's a game, it's a job, and the players work hard. Just like the rest of us. They get paid significantly more, millions more, and live a life quite unlike ours, but at least we all have that little thing in common. The relativity of what a bad day of work is for one person and another can reveal great distances. All we can do is work as hard as we can at whatever we do, and leave it all on the field.