Thanks, Julia and Richard

Benedict. Maggie Carpenter likes Eggs Benedict, not poached, fried, scrambled, or even egg white omelets.

Eggs = Baseball.

Living in Oakland, California (at least for the first few years of my life)—in the time of Eckersley, the Bash Brothers, and Tony La Russa—I was raised to be an A’s fan. Some found this conflicting with my SF 49ers fandom (which, I might add, is the ONLY team I’m currently a fan of that I have been since I was little), but I didn’t really care. Aside from watching the Battle of the Bay and the Loma Prieta Earthquake, the Athletics didn’t have a lot of bearing on my young life.

In Virginia, I was injected with NASCAR and college football (Boomer!), but the A’s didn’t really stick in my east coast transplanting. When I moved back to California, Tony Stewart and the Sooner Schooner came with, but after a couple Giants games at AT&T Park, I had to admit that by default, going to more Giants games than A’s games made me more of a Giants fan. Besides, my girlfriend at the time was a Giants fan, and I was being supportive (aka indifferent).

Moving down to Long Beach as a Giants fan by associated, the Dodgers were off limits (not that I wanted any part of them anyway), and the next social rendezvous I got into started my relationship with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. (Obviously, I picked the wrong season to stop following the Giants, but it was indicative of my emotional ties to the Frisco bay area.) Even with the passing of said rendezvous, my faith in the Angels has only increased.

I’ve taken quite a liking to the Angels in the outfield (and those among the infield…), and with Godzilla’s parting this season, my favorite number has led me to a new player…25 and Peter Bourjos. (Peter Bourjos Jelly Time, Peter Bourjos Jelly Time). This past Monday, the 4^th, Bourjos landed a pretty sweet catch against the center field wall, and I was looking forward to more Angels antics at tomorrow night’s game as well. Unfortunately, he pulled a hammy last night and was replaced with a minor league call up, Mike Trout, who, although went 0 for 3, made a pretty sweet catch in the 9^th to let the senior bigs know he isn’t just a replacement.

My apologies, I got caught up in tonight’s game and had to share a couple highlights.

So yeah, I’m an Angels fan. My eggs benedict of baseball. I’m no longer defaulting to whomever I’m dating, I actually have a team that I follow quite avidly (which is good for the summer time, because Sooner football is only September through January).

This minor development with major (league) details is only a sliver of a larger story that’s been in progress since 1999, and I think I’ll write about that tomorrow…or at least sometime soon.

It started when one of my close relatives came out of the closet…