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mkempton
07-24-2002, 05:13 PM
I have to admit I broke the rules and have been posting for a few days without breaking my ice first!

I'm a 28-year-old network administrator at a large bank in beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. I live and die by the Tribe these days, but it wasn't always so. Growing up in the sticks out east, I didn't see too many baseball games, just played them. Then we got cable, and around the mid-80's I found "You can't do that on Television" beginning to suck, so I started watching Cubs games after school on WGN. It was perfect. I got home around 2:05 (first stop on the bus route) and the 1:00 games in Wrigley were getting under way. Not sure what year it was, but I missed the hoopla in '84, so I think it was the next year. (My best memory was when I was on an exchange program in the USSR. I got to make one phone call to my parents during the month-long trip, and the first thing I asked was how the Cubs were doing. My mom had to send my dad to find the paper, but he came back with "first place". That made my trip!) I followed the Cubs through high school, then quit following sports in general through college. When I gradated in '95, I moved back to my mom's for a couple months. As everyone knows, there was no strike backlash here. Baseball was on every night, and I found my mom watching it all the time, and so I got hooked on the Tribe. I had followed them a bit through the general media outlets while in school, but not much. I was so green I thought Charles Nagy was some old retread! (Ten years later. . .)

So I was the normal baseball fan until I read a column by Rob Neyer during the '97 WS that hooked me and drew me into the evil, time-consuming world of baseball fanatic. And I've loved it ever since.

Sorry for such a long, boring post!

Mark

TGwynn19
07-24-2002, 05:26 PM
Mkempton welcome aboard!!! Glad to have your here. What was it about Neyer's column that started you down the road of super-fanaticism?

BTW, I was at game 7 in '97!;)

cubfan33
07-24-2002, 05:26 PM
Welcome Mark ...

Which bank? National City? If so, say hi to my money for me. Good to see someone who found the Cubs at nearly the same time I did ...

And You Can't Do That on Television still rules ... and had Alanis!

Max Power
07-24-2002, 05:32 PM
"Welcome!" from me.

Please be sure to read this thread:
http://www.netshrine.com/vbulletin2/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4789
You should find it very helpful.
Happy posting!

mkempton
07-24-2002, 05:34 PM
Not NatCity. Key. By way of McDonald & Company Investments. We were bought about four years ago and it's been a mixed bag ever since.

But if you send me some, I'll still say hi to your money!

gyb13
07-24-2002, 05:49 PM
welcome Mark, good to have you aboard!

Any relation to Tim? ;)

SmedIndy
07-24-2002, 10:32 PM
Welcome - have fun...should have stayed a Cub fan though. That's the best way to learn how to drink...and when!

Skip
07-24-2002, 10:48 PM
Oh Mark, welcome and all, but you better hope no-one throws up the old thread where people who change allegiance like that were trashed as not *real* fans. Oops, too late. :D

mkempton
07-25-2002, 12:04 AM
Not sure I'd call it that. Since they never competed, I wasn't favoring the Cubs over the Tribe. I just never got to see the Tribe play. It was too far to go to a game most of the time (saw way less than one a year) and I don't remember them being on TV. Maybe because my parents controlled the remote, and I was outside so late playing ball every night until someone caught it with their face.

TGwynn - I don't remember exactly what it was. I think it was just the level-headed approach and the logic I saw in what he was saying. Mind you, I don't think the first column won me over, because it wasn't very complimentary of my boys, but after a few, I really got to like this newfound approach to the game. I've always been a friend of numbers (favorite book in college: Innumeracy) and liked that he used them in something as cool as baseball beyond just BA and HRs. And once I started reading his column, my childhood love for the game was resparked and I just had to read as much as I could get my hands on.

pwdennis
07-25-2002, 12:10 AM
Welcome aboard fellow sufferer

Baseball fever :a life-long affliction (thank God)