"All you have to do is succeed utterly."

[Alyssa]

Tuesday was, to my mind, the first full-fledged day of low-skies-shirt-sticking-to-your-back summer here in D.C. And because of that, when I sat down to watch the Red Sox game last night, I cranked up the AC, broke out the salted peanuts and opened up Once More Around the Park, which, even though Roger Angell sides with the Mets over the Sox in 1986 in "Not So, Boston," is one of the finest collections of baseball writing ever published. (A Great and Glorious Game is a close second.)

Warning to all, ye who enter here: I am an unrepentant baseball sentimentalist and Red Sox fan. Deal with it.

I took particular pleasure in settling down to the game last night because, two months into this season, I'm convinced that this is a pivotal year for baseball. Tom Verducci's assessment of the season so far kind of captures what's going on: the owners are happy, the Rays are scrapping for first, etc. But I think he doesn't spend quite enough time on the most important part of this season: as in the workforce as a whole, the next generation is asserting itself in baseball.

I am young enough to remember when even minor league prospects seemed impossibly grown-up. Whoever it was who wore #34 for the then-Expos farm team the Vermont Lake Monsters in 1994, thank you for putting up with my nine-year-old self and signing my hat at least twice that summer. My first year as a Sox fan was Tim Wakefield's first, magical summer in Boston.

And now, guys my age are spinning no-hitters. The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is now dominated by a debate over two packages of young pitchers. Jonathan Papelbon, at 27, is the duck-barbecuing, crazy-dancing elder of the bunch. I could have babysat Justin Upton, one of the most electrifying young players coming up in the game today. My sources are telling me that if they were my age, they'd be writing mash notes to Jacoby Ellsbury. (As the always excellent Basegirl puts it: "THANKS ANYWAY, MINNESOTA BUT WE'LL KEEP THESE GUYS IF THAT'S COOL.")


In some ways, I'm not ready for the transition. It breaks my heart that Ken Griffey, Jr.'s home run trek has been blunted by Barry Bonds' record and the passage of time, and that the sportin' news, as Annie Savoy would put it, has largely turned its attention elsewhere. I saw Curt Schilling in the second game of the World Series from FREEZING standing room only seats last year, and I'm not prepared to wave my final goodbye to the big lunk yet.

But so it goes. Baseball is a young man's game, and I'm inspired by the young men who are taking their place in it. The next, oh, ten years are going to be a lot of fun.