a close call

I wonder what Pavlov would say about four-color brochures?

No sooner had I finished explaining that being burnt out on the MLB is what sent me headlong into this football season when the mail arrived. Oh no, not them again. The team that just signed a let's-be-nice-and-call-him-slumping shortstop rejected by three clubs in two years. The organization that has swindled me out of more dollars than I can count for seats behind fences and foul poles and hand rails (we have, I've learned, different definitions of OBS VU). That's right, the Cardinals, sending me temptation in the mail.

And yet I scan the booklet of ticket packages slickly designed for holiday giving--the marketing department is still championship-caliber--and I wonder, "Do I wanna go?" No! I mean, yes! I mean, I don't have the money! Upwards of three hundred bucks lately gone for concerts and football--both much surer bets for my entertainment dollar--but still! I'm such a sucker.

Last year was an easy rejection. The "Pujols Packs" were mostly terrible games--think the Nats in April--assembled to sell otherwise empty seats. I just got on my high horse and rode away. But now I see the Giants, the Cubs on my birthday weekend, the Cubs in September, the Dodgers in August. Even if they're lousy, I'll still like to go. I feel the justifications brewing, the jones for summer starting. The on-sale is Saturday. You think I can arrange by then for a big pile of twenties to fall from the sky?

As if I wouldn't have about forty-seven other places to spend them before they even hit the ground. As if, I should remind myself, I didn't stop paying serious attention baseball about when, May, this year? (Except for Ankiel's magic month, and of course that was fake, too.) The off-season sure is something; wipe the slate clean start again. Except, I should remind myself, this is not the off-season: it's the very tail end of Week 13!