The Pay Off

When the call comes in to visit my wife's grandmother, the trade-off for me is the opportunity to watch some baseball. More precisely, a lot of baseball. Over the last four days, I have been able to watch four Oakland A's games with many other games in between. At home this is not possible. One might say it's my pay-off for visiting the In-Laws. In a related way, there have been two other "pay-offs".

During Monday night's game, the camera switched several times to one of the Oakland Players working on his swing in the dug out. The player was Milton Bradley. Bradley is a switch hitter and he was, while in the dug out, practicing his swing both right handed and left. The other players gave him the space, but he is the only one I saw doing it. There seemed to be something that he was specifically working on and he was intent on mastering it.

Late in the game, the game was a tight 6-4 in favor of the A's. Milton Bradley got up to the plate and on the first pitch offered, the game became a three run game. He hit the ball left handed up and over the left field wall. In baseball, late in the game as it was, the difference between a two-run game and a three-run game is enormous. The A's held on to win it 7-4.

Nothing was really said about the dugout practice session, maybe it happens all the time. The thing I noticed was the determination to "get it right" and to be ready for the moment. It paid off. That was Pay-off #2.

Pay off #3- After watching four consecutive baseball games of my favorite team and for all my time and effort, I have a blog entry!

Now if can figure out how to write that off my taxes...