Baseball fan or just a collector?

[Eric72]

I am, and always have been, a fan of baseball.

Like nearly everything in life, the game continually goes through changes. As a result, baseball is no longer identical to the game I grew up with. However, it still strongly resembles what I played as a youngster. Similarly, my childhood game was a bit different than my father's...and his father's...and so on.

To me, that's one of baseball's most endearing attributes. No matter how much it (and the world at large) happens to change throughout the decades, baseball has an unchanged core identity. Across generations, we can discuss to game with our parents, children, grandparents, and grandchildren. We can talk about the game with friends and strangers, aged five to a hundred and five.

As silly as it may seem to include them all in the same conversation, we can discuss Ted Williams, Mitch Williams, and the San Diego Chicken. We can talk about multi-purpose stadiums, Yankee Stadium, and Sick's Stadium. We can discuss a range of topics from a minute ago to a century ago and beyond.

We can do all of this and more because of baseball.

Am I a fan? Absolutely.