Shipping Down to DC

I've been the worst Red Sox blogger in the world lately - and it's not because the Red Sox have been one of the worst baseball teams lately (though that's certainly true - shout out to the rest of the AL East for also being generally terrible).

No, I've been awful because I haven't been able to catch many Red Sox games, as I spend most of my time at Nationals Park these days, covering the Nats for NewsChannel 9 in Syracuse as a field production intern. You might reasonably wonder why a Syracuse station would care about the Nationals... it's because the Nats' Triple-A affiliate is the Syracuse Chiefs.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have seen me live-tweeting Chiefs games a few weeks back, as I covered a few of those (and photogged many more) during my last semester at the Newhouse School. You've doubtless noticed me live-tweeting Nats games for the last week - so for those Red Sox fans who are sticking with me, I appreciate it.

This blog will have have Nats home game recaps and video starting tonight, and (probably) ending in five weeks when the internship concludes. I'll be sure to tag those posts appropriately, starting with this one, and to add Red Sox posts whenever I can.

To any Nationals fans who might now stumble upon this blog - welcome! Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see here.

Life, school, and baseball

Anyone uninterested in a post that's more about me than the Red Sox (I suspect that's most of you) can come back later for a reaction to the sacking of Tito.  Right now I need an outlet, and since this is my blog, I feel entitled to use the space for that - at least once.

This morning, I got up at seven to take the LSAT.  Through a series of unfortunate events (and several dimwitted and sleep-clouded actions on my part), I missed the test.  I was upset, obviously, but as I drove back to school, I realized that I was much more distressed about the fact that I wasted $140 (a sum I don't really have to throw away) than the fact that I wouldn't be sitting the exam.

Lately I've been thinking about the future (an inescapable pastime for a senior in college - especially in the current economic climate), and I'm suddenly not as sure as I used to be that I even want to be a lawyer.  It's always been my dream to work in baseball; I've always said I don't care what I have to do, as long as I can be around the game.

My first choice would be to earn a living in sportswriting, but you don't generally get offered a job at The Globe straight out of college, particularly if you don't have a journalism degree (TrinColl doesn't offer that major).  It used to be that you would pay your dues at a small local and/or regional newspaper, and then hopefully your if your work was good it would get recognized by a national publication and you would move up the ranks. Now, as many of you know, those smaller newspapers are in trouble, much more likely to be shedding payroll than taking chances on unknowns.

The next best thing would be to work for a team, in any capacity.  Baseball is a well known boys' club, steeped in tradition and notoriously difficult to break into. Given the game's established proclivity for hiring men, and especially former players, I assumed that (as a woman who last played even softball in high school) my best bet was to get a law degree and try to work with contracts, either with a team or for an agency.


In the last few weeks, I should have been studying for this test. I bought the review book, I had free time, but I couldn't bring myself to sit down and focus on it.  I just wasn't passionate about any of the material, and even less excited about the prospect of mortgaging my entire life away for three more years of education that I have no way of paying for.

I've always been so sure about my direction in life; I was a third grader with a twenty-year plan for my future, and now I'm floundering.  I'm sure this is nothing new, or even unusual, but it's particularly jarring for me because I have always known what my next step should be.

I don't flatter myself that I could make a living as a writer at this point in my life - I need a LOT more practice - and so I'm lost. I don't know where I should be looking, or what I should be doing, and I'm going to be dumped (ceremoniously, in a cap and gown, but still dumped) into the cold, cruel world in seven months.  The only thing I'm still sure of is my love for baseball, and the Red Sox (yes, even after this disgrace of a season).  I know I've been absolutely terrible at keeping up this blog in 2011, and I'm sorry. I hope to be better while I figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

[Also, for anyone who managed to slog through all that existential crap, I thank you. To show my appreciation, here's a video of Florida Atlantic and Western Kentucky baseball players putting on a show - during a rain delay.]

About me:

Basically, I started this blog because I am more than a little preoccupied with the Red Sox, and since I'm beginning to run out of Sox blogs to read, I thought I would write my own; even if no one even reads it, I'll have a space for my thoughts [since my immediate family tunes me out when I start waxing poetic about the genius of Bill James].

Most of my friends are what you would call "casual fans," and therefore have no interest in Dustin Pedroia's OPS+ [you'll discover in short order that I have a minor obsession with our diminutive second basemen]. It makes me feel a little better [read: not insane] that I've found whole online communities of people like myself, whose lives are all but consumed with baseball in general and the Red Sox in particular.

I plan to post every day, since one of the things that frustrates me most about my favorite blogs is that I sometimes have to wait for new entries. I understand that most bloggers have actual jobs to attend to, but really, what are people's priorities?? [Another upside to Off the Monster: since I'm a student, I have a disgraceful amount of free time on my hands, which of course means more time to write.]

However, I think that's enough for now. Oh, and for those who are interested, Pedroia's OPS+ was 122 in 2008.