If I were a mustachioed country singer, I'd slap on some tinted shades, strap on a Fender, leap on top of my amp and bellow to the world, "Are you ready for some baseball?" Ahem.
I'll ask again: Are you ready for some baseball? Not humidorish Mile-High baseball. Not indoor swimming-pool desert baseball. Not LOL Divorce McCourt baseball. Real pennant-fever, pitchers-n-defense, Buster Posey-vs-Matt Latos baseball. MadBum-vs-Adrian Gonzalez baseball. I wouldn't even mind the San Diego Chicken, because old-school mascots are real baseball.
I dislike the Padres because they often do bad things to the San Francisco Giants, but at least they play real baseball. Also, they are not the Dodgers. Padres fans, the few of them who actually show up to cheer their team during a pennant race, also hate the Dodgers. Or so I've heard. So I can't really hate the Padres. I hate those camouflage uniforms, no disrespect intended to our armed forces, but I don't hate the team itself. I make fun of David Eckstein because it's easy to do, but it's not Eckstein's fault he's become an object of tiny-gamer fetishism. It's not Scott Hairston's fault that he makes small Northern Californian children cry -- well, actually, it is. Fie, Scott Hairston, fie, and think twice before you do it again.
And let it be said for the record that real baseball doesn't have to mean torture. Nice, clean 4-1 victories are real baseball. Please, Giants, I want to keep what's left of the the rapidly graying hair atop my cabeza. Don't make me lose it any faster. I am ready for some baseball, but I might not be ready for four days of crippling acid reflux.
