A final word on how hard it is to be us

By Troy Foster

We should stop feeling sorry for ourselves.

We’ve both made a few passing references to it lately. I also promised two blogs ago that I would say a word about what, until recently, had been slowing us down.

As Daren and I were standing at “Club Red” in Cincinnati tonight, taking in the view of the game from center field on Day 40 of this baseball road trip, my traveling companion said something that really hit home.

“A year from now, we’ll look back and say that this was the greatest trip of all time,” he said.

He’s got to be right. We’ll scoff at all the trivial things that have been bothering us lately. Since we saw the Detroit Tigers lose at home eight days ago, we went through a rough stretch of fatigue and lethargy that neither of us have ever felt before.

We recently attended four games in as many days — two in Chicago, one in Cleveland and one in a foreign country. During the Toronto Blue Jays game, I saw Daren do something I never thought I’d ever see in my life. He fell asleep. DURING THE GAME!

Sure, it’s a baseball game, but this is Daren — the penultimate baseball FREAK. When he gets cut, chalk from the first-base line pours out of the wound, and when he’s stressed he sweats hotdog mustard.

If you’ve read my previous posts, you might have already heard my thoughts on the principal of marginal utility. So I was reluctant to even write about this subject tonight, because the last thing anyone should feel is pity for two guys going to every Major League Baseball stadium in North America.

But we spent most of our time in Toronto sleeping. After the daytime Blue Jays game, we checked into a youth hostel (and thankfully didn’t get carded) at a run-down dormitory on the campus of Toronto University. I took one of those woozy, mid-day naps that last several hours and got up around 7 p.m. — right after Daren started his own nap, which ended around midnight. He was screwed.

Weird things are happening to our bodies. I’ve basically written off exercise until this thing is over, and if I’m not careful I’m going to need Jared’s old pants. Daren, on the other hand, has been LOSING weight and is starting to look like Skeletor.

We don’t really know what’s going on. But the fatigue I felt in Toronto was tantamount to the way I felt during the summer of ‘06, when I spent much of June and July in bed and was convinced I was dying until a nurse practitioner told me I had mono.

So as we were standing on a ledge in center field tonight, watching the Reds get hammered by the Pirates in their own Great American Ball Park, three guys next to us initiated a friendly conversation. They asked us where we had been, and where we were going. Like many people before, they expressed their admiration for the chance we were taking.

We said something to the effect of being burned out lately, and I might have mentioned — again — something about the principal of marginal utility.

But, really, it’s time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves. Because these wonderful gentlemen were excited to hear all about our travels. They gave us some words of encouragement, and one of the guys said, “You’ll get your second wind in as you enter the final leg.”

Daren and I agreed tonight to stop complaining about how hard our lives are, and this will be the final word about fatigue that you hear from me. We got two good nights of sleep in Columbus at the apartment of my friend and former, who was incredibly gracious and sweet to two Major League Assholes. Now we’re ready to put our game faces back on.

After all, Daren said doing a BaseCrawl is like being a rock star on tour — you know, with the traveling and all.

The only difference is Daren can’t sing, I’m horrible at guitar, and when we arrive at these incredible ballparks, nobody cares.

(There’s more on this and our other adventures at BaseCrawl.com).