Opinion

I'm an optimist.

I'm a New York Mets fan.

No, the two are not mutually exclusive. Yet this year, the latter is testing the former. 

The Mets are 6-8, soon to be 6-9. Going into today's game against the St. Louis Cardinals, the only starting pitcher with consistency has been Johan Santana. Jose Reyes has only two stolen bases and seven runs scored. David Wright has five RBI.

Welcome to the first edition of my new weekly section, South Sidings—my own views and opinions on the previous week's White Sox action. I hope you enjoy!

So, we're 14 games into the season and at 8-6, the Chicago White Sox are off to a decent start, with the positives greatly outweighing the negatives.

Let's take a closer look at this on a player by player basis:

Starters

There’s someone that works for the state of New Jersey that I know and he always comes to visit me to see how I’m doing, since I’m disabled. We’ll talk about me for about five minutes and then the next 20 minutes we’ll talk about the Yankees. He’s a big Yankee fan.

He doesn’t think Jorge is a good defensive catcher. He thinks he is terrible. I didn’t think anything of what he was saying until he told me to check out stats of when Jorge starts to when Jose Molina starts. I did check out the stats.

I always wonder about how managers deal with the various attitudes and personalities on a roster. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint; which means there are going to be lots of ups and downs.

At 9-6, the Pittsburgh Pirates have gotten off to their best start since 2002. After sweeping the first place Florida Marlins this week, things are looking pretty good in Pirate-ville right now.

What started as a Spring Break with the prospect of seeing multiple games at several venues on a variety of levels ended with us arriving home a day early having seen just a few innings of baseball.

That’s okay. Quality can supersede quantity especially when it comes to peanuts and cracker jacks. I’m not quite sure that makes sense, but we’ll go with it.

The smell of beer and hot dogs immediately hit me as I walked into Busch Stadium Tuesday night. Let me tell you, it is a wonderful smell.

There is something special about being at the ballpark. It is a great feeling, even therapeutic.

I didn't have the chance to go last year. It has been my first year I haven't been to a ballgame for as long as I can remember.

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Certainly exceeding utility status, yet short of earning a starting spot in the last three years, Brian Anderson’s position with the Chicago White Sox has been frustratingly undefined.

“Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.”

That famous song, by Jack Norworth (I bet you did not know that, and I am impressed if you did) is sung in the middle of seventh innings from early March to late October in ball parks all over the United States.

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