Thank you, Cleveland.

My wife and I enjoyed watching the Guardians this season more than I ever could have guessed.

(Sorry in advance for two posts in one day. I just wanted to get both of these out of my head.)

As one of the internet’s professional nerds, I know my audience likely does not have much patience for me waxing poetic about sports. Lucky for you, this isn’t likely to become a big part of my blog. Lucky for me, at least one paid subscriber to this newsletter is indeed a big sports fan, so if nothing else, I’m writing this for his benefit (and mine).

I have always had an on-again/off-again relationship with professional sports. When I was a kid, and into high school, I played baseball — and reasonably well! I never played on a school team, but I jumped from Little League to a community league, and in the last game I ever played, I pitched 5 1/3 perfect innings before being ejected for throwing at an umpire.

(The full story makes me sound less stupid, but it’s more fun to let you use your imagination.)

Actually watching professional sports has rarely been something I could really stomach, though. As a teen, I watched baseball religiously. I rooted for the Cleveland Indians, due mostly to my love for the Major League movies, and the early- to mid-1990s was a great time to be a Cleveland fan. The team’s lineup included Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel, Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, Eddie Murray, Jim Thome, Sandy Alomar Jr., and a pitching staff that included aging legends like Dennis Martinez and Jack Morris alongside newcomers like Charles Nagy and closer Jose Mesa. Win or lose, it was a fun team to watch. Great players, some colorful characters, and a really smart manager in Mike Hargrove, who helped elevate the team beyond what people expected.

Eventually, as so many teenage boys do, I discovered girls, and while my love for baseball never really died out, it was no longer the central preoccupation of my free time. The last time I remember really obsessing over baseball, watching the box scores and stalking the standings in the morning paper, was 1997, when Cleveland lost the World Series to the Florida Marlins — a team owned by Blockbuster Video boss Wayne Huizenga!

I would tune in periodically, but stopped following baseball regularly — and notably, stopped rooting for any one team. If anyone asked me who I liked, I just said that I wanted to see a good game and would change the channel if it was sloppy, or a blowout.

My wife, Cali, previously took interest in baseball in principle. We have watched the Ken Burns Baseball documentary a handful of times all the way through, with me sharing my insights and opinions along the way. This year, while looking for something to watch, she suggested a Prime Video-exclusive live baseball game.

It was mostly out of morbid curiosity, but it was fun to watch together. I don’t even remember what game it was — although I think one of the teams was the Houston Astros, who I still struggle to believe are in the American League now. It’s possible it was the Astros vs. the Tigers, which was the free game of the day on June 15th.

Cali had fun watching the game — partially because it was an enjoyable game, but also just because it was time to ourselves, where we kicked the kids off the TV and got to enjoy each other’s company. A few years ago, the last time I subscribed to the MLB app, it had been kind of a bust. I hardly watched anything, in part because Cali wasn’t interested and I had to choose between baseball and time with her. She always wins that kind of thing.

So, we decided to do a free trial of the MLB app, giving us a couple of weeks to see if we would watch more games. On the first day of the trial, we didn’t know what to watch, and so we decided to default to Cleveland. Now named the Guardians — a much better name — I knew nothing about the team, other than a vague sense that they had stunk last year.

That first game was magical. It was like being transported back to my teen years. As in the ‘90s, it was a fun team to watch. The team was full of great players and colorful characters, including Steven Kwan, José Ramírez, and Josh Naylor, all of whom showed up in that first game we watched. They were electrifying, and I immediately abandoned my “I just want to see a good game” philosophy to once again root for Cleveland.

Best of all, Cali felt the same way. The two weeks passed, and we kept watching. The season progressed, and the team saw a marked decline after the All-Star Game…but it didn’t matter. Both of us were invested in this team. Manager Stephen Vogt was exactly what you want as a “new” fan — he clearly loves his team, clearly loves baseball, and the connection he forged with the players seemed to elevate the team. Even without ace Shane Bieber, who was out with an injury before we started watching, Vogt managed to significantly improve the team over last year.

Cali and I started watching the Guardians religiously around the middle of June, and continued to do so not just until the end of the season — but we’re still watching. After the Guardians lost the American League Championship Series to the Yankees, we watched the Yankees and Dodgers in the World Series…and then started to go back to March and April to watch the earliest games that we had missed. There’s absolutely zero stress watching the team you root for win or lose six months ago, so we’re having a lot of fun.

(Also! Now we finally get to see Bieber pitch.)

This is like 25% Cleveland Guardians baseball and 75% that I love spending time with my wife, but it has been just wonderful. She will sit and crochet, and we’ll talk, and she’ll ask me questions I don’t know because half the rules have changed since the last time I was watching regularly.

But one thing that really shone through watching the team this year is how close they appear to be. It’s a really upbeat and supportive dugout, and the team all seem to be really engaged when they’re doing press and the like. Obviously, I don’t know these guys and all that could be well-strategized, but their dynamic on and off the field really created a sense of enthusiasm for their success. You have three big stars in the lineup, and after a while, Cali became very invested in seeing some of the other six hitters succeed. We recently watched an early-season game in which Bo Naylor hit a grand slam, and it was as much fun watching her response to it, as it was watching the game.

They’re a really fun team to watch. Their chemistry, along with the Cinderella story and just having a bunch of really good, entertaining ballplayers, created a narrative that was fun to follow…and by the end of the season, they had gotten so streaky that we basically promised ourselves that as long as we made the playoffs, we would be happy. It’s a great team, but one great or terrible week and anything at all could happen, from being swept out of the ALDS to winning the World Series. Turns out, we kind of split the difference.

At the end of the (admittedly very long) season, my father-in-law (not a baseball fan) asked if Cali and I still felt like it had been worth all the time invested, since the team didn’t make it to the Series. My response was, absolutely. Not only did the team perform better than anyone expected at the start of the year, but the real joy was just engaging with the game again, watching a really fun, dynamic team play baseball, and spending time with my wife.

My last rant was a bit on the heavier side, and I’ve had the idea of a “love letter to baseball” rattling around in my skull since the season ended, so I decided to indulge myself a little here. I appreciate anybody still reading. Be back here by noon on the fifth day for more Emerald City Video, and always rewind your cassettes.