Baseball Season Is Back, Thank You For That

In 2012, New York Mets pitcher RA Dickey had one of the most unexpected seasons of all time for a hurler. The former first round draft pick turned journeyman pitcher turned reinvented knuckleballer won 20 games with a mediocre Mets team and won the Cy Young Award for the National League; this award goes to the best pitcher in their respective league. The pitcher Dickey finished ahead of that year in voting, Clayton Kershaw, will most certainly be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Dickey, will be remembered for winning 98 out of his 120 wins after his age 35 season and honing a pitch that is largely considered an oddity in the sport.

Baseball is a game of many events over the course of a single game. Teams throw close to 300 combined pitches per game, with no set limits on the number of batters that theoretically could come to bat. This produces a lot of events where a large number of potential outcomes could happen. That's why the statistics behind the sport are so fascinating. Careers can be told in numbers, but the stories they tell could fill encyclopedias. Studies have been devoted to singular parts' of players games, so much that whole websites could be populated looking at a small aspect of the game.

That's why a curious event like RA Dickey's 2012 season was so exciting. This was something that the numbers predicted should not happen. Yet, watching it play out every five days told a different story. One that was unique and fresh. One that if you had any vested interest in it, made you feel quite inspired.

That same year of my life is one you could call eventful, in many ways. It was the end of my junior year and start of my senior year in college. I lived in Germany for six months. The Rangers were two games away from playing for the Stanley Cup. I turned 21. I met the woman who would become my wife of ten years. I started a rowing season that for the first time ever would not end with me being injured and frustrated. I was sexually assaulted. I got a job that would put me in a path to pursue journalism and cover sports in a way that I never thought was possible. Linsanity happened.

RA Dickey and I crossed paths that year in a few ways. First, I made sure to watch all of his starts and follow his improbable season as close as I could. Second, I managed to catch his only relief appearance of the season in person on my birthday, when I went to a Mets game with my friends to celebrate. He managed to give up two runs in the 9th inning blunting a potential Mets comeback during a horrid stretch that ensured the hot start the team had at the beginning of the year would remain just a fluke. Third, I devoured his memoir "Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball," that summer and it helped me come to terms with the fact that I was also in fact abused as a child and it had left permanent psychological scars that I am still in fact dealing with to this day.

The lingering after-effects of that year in my life are present to this day. Some years are just more consequential than others.

While my life was very tumultuous that year, I had an ever present reminder of stability, even if I did not understand how important that was. I had baseball to watch. For two to three hours every day I would sit down and bask in the game's ebb and flow and allow myself to be as immersed as I want to be. Baseball is a game of consequential decision-making happening at every single moment, but if you do not know where to look much of it passes you right by. Its a game with a pace that is moderately slow, and can allow the viewer the choice to partake how they want.

Most of the time when I am watching baseball I'm engaging in a deep level. I'm looking to see how David Peterson is expanding the strike zone with help of the umpires to get more strikeouts. I'm looking to see Francisco Lindor's positioning constantly changing so he can continue to be one of the best shortstops at preventing runs. I want to see Jose Siri's reaction time when trying to steal a base. There are countless decisions being made by players and managers at every moment. Deciphering their thought process brings me joy. But, I have learned that if I need to turn my brain off, or just let the game flow over me I can watch pitch go fast or ball hit hard. Run score. Game over.

It would be a few years after that consequential summer of 2012 that I discovered the writing of Stacey May Fowles, a canadian author who's newsletter "Baseball and Other Things" was an essential part of my inbox. Fowles' writing at times touched on the intersection of being a sexual assault survivor and finding comfort in baseball's routine and calmness. Having that consistency was important towards quelling residual anxiety that was present in parts of her life. It was the type of writing that I needed as a rape survivor, even though I did not know that I was consciously approaching the game in similar fashions.

My life may hit plenty of turbulence at unexpected points, but every year the Mets are guaranteed to play at least 162 games. Whether or not I choose to engage on a deep level won't change this. The games usually start around the same time on specific days, and take as long as they take. You can't rush baseball.

Fowles' eventually wrote a book based on her newsletter, with RA Dickey writing the foreword. It's very good.

After that miraculous 2012 season, the Mets traded RA Dickey before the final year of his contract came into effect since they did not want to sign him long term. Two of the prospects netted in that trade - Travis D'Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard - played a big role in the Mets making the 2015 World Series. I can probably tell you where I was when each game happened. I watched the Mets win Game 3 of that series, the game Syndergaard started, in a bar in Washington, D.C. with two friends who lived there. I was covering a meeting of national olympic committees gathering after having moved to Rio de Janeiro. Joe Biden gave a speech.

The last time I saw Noah Syndergaard pitch live, I was visiting my father in Florida in mid-March 2020. My wife and I were a little worried about travelling in a nascent pandemic. Days later the world shut down. Noah Syndergaard also tore his UCL during that spring training game after looking impressive. He would go on to only pitch one more inning for the Mets, at the end of 2021. That UCL tear cost him a potential lucrative long term extension and likely caused the acceleration of the end of his career.

Baseball is like this. Once you pull at any of the threads of the fabric of the game, you can go down infinite routes of players mingling with the rest of your life. The sport is naturally one for storytellers, with potential outcomes foretold, but the journey to get there cloaked in infinite possibilities. Choose any of the paths and a new, enthralling story emerges. I cannot wait to see where the 2025 season goes. The last year was one of the most compelling Mets seasons I have the privilege of watching. I'm so excited to see how they can top that.

Five years after his miraculous Cy Young season, RA Dickey signed with the Atlanta Braves, the team he grew up rooting for in 2017. That year I wrote a small profile about the team moving from the site of the 1996 Olympic Opening Ceremony to the suburbs, making sure to interview him about being probably the only pitcher left to play in the Olympics and if professionals should go to future editions. He took the time out of the last spring training game of the year to speak with me on a topic very unrelated to the events happening all around him. His answers were insightful and I remember it clearly.

Stories like these are what make baseball so enthralling. There's always a new angle for something to emerge from. The 2025 season is here, I cannot wait to see what the players tell. I will be watching.