Don And Jerry

I am not a huge baseball fan but I do dig it. The first week of the season, I am as a wide eyed child on his first trip to the zoo. I watch intently, renewed and invigorated.
That quickly wears off.
The Sox are only twelve games into the season and already baseball has just become something on the TV screen. Something to glance at and track half- heartedly. That's because they play so many goddamn games. 162 games. Who the hell came up with a schedule like that? The Marquis De Sade? (one of my favorite people).
So you have a million games and it's slow moving stuff. It does not compel you to stay focused.
Football, hockey, these sports you have to watch with burning intensity. The action magnetizes your eyes, you cannot look away.
Baseball you can walk away for an hour to set your neighbors house on fire, run out and pick up more cold beer and attend mass, re-hit the recliner and ask  'What's the scoop?" and you're right back in it.
"It's the top of the seventh, the score is tied at one, there are two outs with men on first and third, Pedroia's at the plate with a count of three and one."
Boom. You didn't miss a thing.
Don and Jerry make the whole thing fun. I love those guys and I love their relationship. They make me laugh. Don and Jerry make baseball much more interesting to me.
They are knowledgeable and I learn, they call and color the game well, and when they go off on some strange conversation I laugh. Happens time and time again.
There are many times when I am slumped in the recliner beaten down by life and unrealized dreams, with my eyes pointed towards the screen, but I'm not really watching the game. I'm hazed out and dazed out and debating in my head the comparative merits of cremation versus burial, when Don and Jerry start up on insanity and suddenly I am laughing, alert and engaged. They bring me back from the dead.
I never thought Orsillo could replace Sean McDonough but he has. McDonough's humor was sharper and more biting, Orsillo's is self deprecating, but it works. I guess that says a lot about Rem-Dog that he could work so well with both of them.
Anyway as I drag, crawl and drool my way through another 162, it's good to know that I can count on D&J to shake me up and wake me up, breathe life into me and make me laugh.
That will get me through boring games and tough stretches of season.
Don and Jerry, baby. Icing on the Red Sox cake.