I made a list of 14 resolutions for myself to be a better Padres/baseball fan in 2014 and thought I'd share it with you all so that maybe you can join me in some of them and we can motivate each other. Here are the first five...
1. Help the Padres improve game attendance
I’m going to try to attend more games this season, especially those that I know won’t be very crowded. I’ve always been fond of day games and weekday night games anyway, so I don’t think it will be too hard to keep this up.
2. Support our Baby Friars
I made a resolution last year to follow and support our minor league affiliates more, and I want to continue doing that. You may recall Dex’s monthly Happiness Project Goals in 2012. One of them was to "look to the future," which is basically what this resolution entails. So look for more prospect talk and minor league updates and game threads this season. And if you don’t see that happening, feel free to get on my ass* and make me feel guilty about not keeping up with my resolution.
3. Brush up on history
Another one of Dex's Happiness Projects was to "ground yourself in the past." It’s not only important to keep our eyes looking towards the future of the club, but also to look back at how our Padres got to where they are now. Some of you may not know this (and some of you may find it painfully obvious), but I’m a relatively new Padres fan. Before 2005-2006ish I was only a casual fan who didn’t do much more than check a box score every once in a while and watch the occasional game. There is so much I don’t know about the team’s past, but I want to learn as much as I can.
4. Read more
I don’t know if there’s a better way to learn about Padres history than by reading about it. Luckily for us in San Diego, we have a treasure trove of resources at the Central Library downtown, including probably any book you can think of written about the Padres or about baseball in general.
5. Always stay until the very last pitch
I was once at an extra-inning game with some friends and one of them reeeeaaaally wanted to leave because they didn’t want to ride the trolley too late. I was able to stall until the 15th inning until I was finally guilted into leaving. As we approached the trolley station outside Petco Park, I heard the remainder of the crowd inside the ballpark erupt in cheers as fireworks went off in celebration of Nick Hundley’s walk-off home run. Never again have I left a game before the final pitch was thrown. This isn’t a new resolution for me, but I still thought it was a good one to include.
Resolutions 6-10 coming soon...
*figure of speech