Someone once told me that if you have a blog, part of why people read it is because of the person who writes the blog.  Essentially, you are trying to create a “cult of personality” around the person who runs the blog.  Well, I am not entirely sure that is true.

For example, look at this blog.  It is supposed to be an informational blog for people who are fans of minor league sports in and around the Chicago area.  Do people really care about me?  Do they really care at all about who runs this site and blog?  Shouldn’t they just be looking for the information they want about their teams?

Well, as I write this, it is raining.  The outside of the building I am in is nearly completely flooded.  There are even tornado warnings all over the place.  As such, it is unlikely there will be much in the way of baseball tonight.  With little else to write about, I might as well write about myself.

I was born in the Chicago area and the first pictures are rather incriminating.  You see, in Chicago, your allegiance to a sports team, particularly a baseball team, comes from birth and usually comes handed down from father to son.  I was born to a bunch of north-siders and they were all Chicago Cubs fans.  My father, in fact, has been a Cubs fan for most of his life.

So, there are pictures of me as an  infant with a Cubs hat placed strategically over my head.  There I am, days old, diapers still bigger than I am, and a Chicago Cubs hat placed over my head in the crib.  Needless to say, I had no idea what it meant and continued to not know for much of my early days.

There are other pictures.  These are pictures of me as a toddler walking around in a Cubs jacket with my own Cubs hat now affixed to my head.  I am in the back yard with basketball and I am tossing it into a basketball net that is practically on the ground.  This was in the days when I didn’t dress myself, you see.

I was always a Chicago Bears fan.  In Chicago, there is only one football team, and you are issued your Bears jersey at birth.  One of my very first words was, and this is no lie, “Butkus.”  It used to be quite a fun thing for me to shout that name during parties and such.

Still, I continued to be dressed in Cubs wear throughout my younger years.  I really didn’t follow baseball.  I did not enjoy watching baseball on television with my father.  I went to a game or two, but mostly found them exceedingly loud and no fun.  In short, for much of my younger life, I had little to no interest in baseball or sports in general.

Then came the day when I was about five years old and I was being baby-sat by my uncle.  It was as day that would life in infamy amongst my family.  It was the weekend that changed my  baseball allegiance forever.

To be continued… 

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