Introductions

Alright so to open this blog I'll just let you all a little about myself. My name is Eric, I'm 25 and I'm from a town called Oakville up in Canada, I'm a die hard baseball fan, avid fantasy baseball player and generic science/tech nerd.

Since I was about 3 years old I've been watching baseball on TV,  I even went to a few games every month or two with the family when I was around that age. Over the years my love for the sport has grown, I went to Blue Jays games fairly often with my family fairly often when I was younger. Then in high school I started going to games with friends fairly often and paying more attention to what was going on with other teams. So I adopted a 'favourite team from each division' stance, so when the Jays weren't playing I'd watch the White Sox, the Braves, the Rangers, the Diamondbacks and the Cardinals. I picked those teams for a variety of reasons, first being that some of them had players I loved and still do in some cases (Mark Buerhle, Paul Konerko, Chipper Jones, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Albert Pujols, Michael Young, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and other players like James Shields).

Then into my junior/senior years in high school I started playing fantasy baseball, both on my own online, with friends in private leagues and helping with drafts and pickups/drops in my dad's AL only league. I was honestly fascinated by how hooked I got on finding daily options for streaming pitchers or watching for triple-A prospect call ups and just how much more baseball I watched/listened to as a result of my new interest.

Through all of this I became more loosely affiliated as a fan of any one team (outside of the Jays that is, gotta represent your home team, right?) and became more of a fan of players, especially the ones that defied all odds to get where they were, ones who were masters of their craft, or guys that just had an amazing consistency when other players of their talent level were having rough outings or getting injured. And above all else I began to respect players that chose to stick it out with their original team rather than opt out at their first chance at free agency when they could cash in, which is why I've been long term fans of guys like Roy Halladay, Chipper Jones, Todd Helton, Ichiro Suzuki and Michael Young. All of those players either stayed with their respective teams longer than they needed to or were willing to sacrifice something for the better of the team (ie. Halladay signing an extension with the Jays despite coming off a great year, minus injury. Or Michael Young constantly switching his position so the Rangers could acquire more talented players).

Now through this I became quite the baseball nerd, but by extension I had developed other nerdy tendencies such as an affinity towards Japanese culture, as well as learning some of the language. A few years removed from high school and into University I went on a week long trip to Tokyo, and when planning this trip I saw that the Yomiuri Giants would being having a home game while I was in town, so I though 'Count me in!' (The Giants are much like the Yankees of the JBL). When I saw the game I can definitely say there is quite a difference in the game I love back in North America versus in Japan, now I don't mean just in the rules, the fan interaction with the team is much different. Fans are just as noisy, if not more so throughout the whole match, but in addition the outfield sections are specifically set for home and away team cheering sections and in a lot of cases those cheering sections will have flags, drums and sometimes other instruments at that. I remember that at that game there was a small section of people playing brass instruments and what really put a smile on my face was the that there was one Canadian player on the Giants that year and the fans had their own specific cheer for him, the game was quite an experience.

After I got back I had this sense that I should see games in other stadiums, since I had only ever been to the Sky Dome (I refuse to call it the Rogers Centre), Old and New Yankees Stadium and Tropicana Field, so my knowledge of baseball parks was rather limited and since Tampa didn't have a great fan base when I saw a game it wasn't an amazing experience. So when I got back from home I decided I would get out to games outside of Canada, which I did, to date I've seen games at the old Sun Life Stadium, U.S Cellular Field, Wrigley Field, Fenway, Rangers Ballpark, and 3 other stadiums when I made a return trip to Japan for a 2 weeks a year ago.

Nowadays despite doing a research degree in Australia I split a yearly MLB.TV subscription with my dad and listen to at least 1-2 games a day, and watch 2-3 of them on weekends. I still have continued playing fantasy baseball on my own as well, I'm now an integral part of my father's team and despite not having any major league games to go to over here I make sure to listen to baseball podcasts, read ESPN baseball articles and keep as up to date as I can with the sport I love.

-Eric