I've been seriously considering quitting the daily baseball diary thing. Not just because I'm quitter -- though I am definitely that -- but also because my writing time (and free time in general) has become such a precious commodity. With a job, a wife, and a screenwriting career (such as it is), I have enough trouble squeezing in time to watch baseball, let alone write about it. I think that shows in my effort, as I often squeeze in a perfunctory post late at night, often thinking, "Oh yeah, I still have write something for the blog." That's never the right attitude to go into any creative endeavor.
I know from experience that my screenwriting is much better when I'm excited to start, when I carve out sections of my life in which to work. But that's the thing -- when it's good, it's not work, but play. Sure, as a professional, sometimes you have to force yourself to get into it with a "Time to make the donuts" kid of mentality. But more often than not, I catch myself working without realizing it -- thinking about ways to improve something while in the shower, or the car, or hiking. Hell, that's half the reason I hike every day -- the other half being to keep from being a pale fatass. That hasn't really happened with the stuff about baseball, and there are several possible reasons for this.
Reason #1 I've already mentioned -- free time. That has to come first, and with the caveat that in terms of priorities, writing about baseball on my blog falls pretty low. That leads to Reason #2: I hate not doing things well. If I'm going to undertake something, I want to be proud of the result. That's why I quit so many things -- I don't think I can do as well as I deem necessary. But neither of those reasons shoulder all the blame.
Enter Reason #3: Though I often dreamed of being a sportswriter when I was a kid, it's not really something I've taken to when given the opportunity. The occasional post about baseball allowed me the great opportunity to write for McCovey Chronicles for a couple of interim stints, and I enjoyed it, but by the end, I was ready to stop and never do it again. A few posts about football from time to time got me the opportunity to write a couple of weekly columns for Niners Nation and that was fun, but again, I was looking forward to the end of the season. I don't know if it has more to do with the responsibility of having to get it done, or the fact my mind is so used to running through character traits, arcs, and plot points that it's hard to train it to think up ideas about what to say about sports. But how can that be the case when I spend so much time thinking about sports?
Maybe because I've yet to learn a successful way to channel what I think about into the posts. For screenwriting, I'm constantly jotting down ideas, notes, capturing every possibility, choosing between them, then tweaking them over and over. For sportswriting I find a little time, write some stream of consciousness stuff and hit "Post". That's it. No plan of attack. No notes about how Travis Ishikawa needs to start swinging at some first pitches because pitchers are laying in fastballs and he's falling behind right away. Just throwing shit at the wall to see if it sticks. If you want to do something well, and you're not some kind of genius or savant, you have to put some time and effort in. I haven't done that. The question is, am I ready to? Which brings us to...
Reason #4: Along with the screenwriting, work, and personal life, I also like writing about other things: movie and TV reviews, a post about my life here and there, another Hollywood Horror Show column -- a haven't written one of those in months and I have several good stories just waiting around to be told. I don't want to be all-baseball-all-the-time all summer, ignoring summer movies and all the new TV shows I'd like to review ("Better Off Ted", "The Unusuals", "Southland", even the so-bad-it's-good-or-maybe it's-just-really-bad "Harper's Island"). No matter what I do, I'm definitely going to post more stuff about entertainment.
So, while I'd like to re-dedicate myself and put a little more thought and effort into my posts, I'm leaning heavily toward either giving it up entirely, or reducing it somehow. Of course, as I'm writing this, the story about Manny Ramirez being suspended 50 games is all over the internet/TV/radio and the Giants are beating the Rockies 5-0 behind an "effectively wild" Matt Cain and a power-binging Bengie Molina. So it looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
Manny tested positive for a banned substance, reportedly a fertility drug. He claims it was prescribed by a doctor for a health issue, which seems curious since I haven't read anything about Ramirez trying to get pregnant. You'd think he'd at least wait until the off-season to try and get knocked up. then again, the way he plays LF, carrying a baby around in his womb probably wouldn't make much of a difference.
This is, of course, a very interesting -- and for a Giants fan, entertaining -- story which I'd like to explore a bit over the coming hours/days/weeks. And the timing of the whole thing -- the day before the 2nd place Giants travel to LA to play the 1st place Dodgers, who are undefeated at home and threatening to run away with the division -- makes it all the more intriguing. I can't just quit now, can I?
Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in.
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