Well, October is over. The leaves have changed, and Halloween has come and gone. We can now look forward to, brisk November mornings, delicious Thanksgiving feasts, and a complete lack of baseball.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like baseball. I love baseball. There’s nothing like the feel of the sun on your face while munching a hotdog, with a cold beer in your hand. Of course, you have to have your binoculars at the ready, so you can scope out pretty girls wearing halter tops, in the bleachers, while the players seem to be doing nothing at all. Which is actually quite often. Baseball does tend to be a very relaxed, and possibly, a sleepy game. So why do they play it in October when you’re likely to freeze your kiester off out there?

Hey, I get it that there’s a lot of money to be made in longer seasons, but they call the players, The Boys of Summer, for a reason. Baseball is a warm weather sport, and half this country and Canada get pretty cold starting in September. The guys or gals were light clothing for freedom of movement. Also looking to the bleachers for parkas is not half as much fun as looking for short shorts.

I could be wrong, but I am reminded of the World Series of 1997. The record books say it was the Florida Marlins vs the Cleveland Indians. Oh, it might have been okay in Miami, but it snowed in Cleveland, a lot. That’s not even the worst of it. For one game the temperature was nine degrees. Baseball is played in ninety degrees not nine. Since it was the World Series there were plenty of fans at the game freezing their buts off. It’s true. After they called the game for too much snow, an old guy in an orange coat went through the stadium picking up frozen body parts which had fallen off. There was an ad all over the internet the next day asking folks, who were at the game, to go to Cleveland City Hall to claim them. It was chaos. Several guys spent hours arguing over who belonged to the biggest, quick frozen, man part, while ten or fifteen smaller ones went unclaimed.

That’s not even the worst of it. Imagine you’re a Marlins fan who flew one-thousand-two-hundred-forty miles for a game only to get snowed out. And what do you do with the rain-check? It will be for some future game, probably next season in Cleveland. Who, in their right mind, wants to pay lots of money to fly from Florida to Ohio for a free baseball game? Face it, it’s very unlikely the Marlins will ever play the Indians ever again.

Then again, some sports people are nuts anyway. Is October baseball truly any worse than January football? I’m not talking about Texas here. Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, and Nashville all have domed stadiums. That’s another question. Why are stadiums in the south, where the weather is usually mild, enclosed and temperature-controlled, when the ones in the north, where it snows seven months a year, are open to the elements? It’s true! Chicago, Cleveland, and Pittsburg all play on fields without a roof. Green Bay, which is somewhere above the Arctic Circle and snows eight months a year, doesn’t have on either. It baffles the mind. Note to cities in the northern United States: if you’re building a stadium for three-hundred-million dollars, percentage-wise, a roof really isn’t that much of an added cost.

I mentioned this to a Chicago native the other day, and he gave me a very poor reason. You see, American Football is a manly sport. Therefore, manly teams don’t wimp out and play the game in enclosed stadiums. To repeat his colloquial phrase, “Only (BEEEEP) do that.” The deleted word is something very feminine in nature. A certain piece female anatomy, in point of fact, I don’t understand the comparison at all. I’ve met many women athletes, and frankly any one of them could kick the crap out of the guy I was talking with and two of his buddies without breaking a sweat. But this is beside the point.

So, in conclusion, the established definition of ‘Manly’ is; a bunch of guys in helmets, running into each other, in freezing snowy weather. No thank you, I’ll just keep being a wimp. You have to remember though; this definition doesn’t cover the fans in the stands. Those folks are in the same freezing weather, but have no helmets and only very rarely slam into each other at full speed.

This love for the cold is an enigma I will never understand. Don’t those people realize our primitive ancestors used furs and deep caves to get away from the cold and snow. Our species evolved in equatorial Africa. Dealing with an adverse environment is not in our DNA. Yet at winter sporting events you will always find several fanatical people without shirts, wearing shorts, and screaming their lungs out. That’s nuts! Heck, even the players are huddled around portable heaters.

Another thing is basketball. Is basketball manly? It’s played all through the winter months, and the players dress in shorts and light shirts. No one ever questions their athletic prowess. Yet they are also never called wimps for playing in a closed arena. However, though I can’t be sure, I bet that some idiot in some snow bound city, is right now passing around a petition to make the NBA pull the roof off their arenas and make their players play in below freezing temperatures, while it snows. Dribbling the ball might be an issue, but who thinks of such things.

Another sports oddity is hockey. This is played by guys who are constantly beating each other up, on a frozen sheet of man-made liquid. I think that liquid is called blood. This should be the ultimate in manliness, yet it is played indoors as well. Wouldn’t it be easier to keep that surface frozen if it were played outside? The fans wouldn’t care. They routinely dress in woolen hats and sweatshirts, even when watching the game inside the arena. I’m guessing that sanity walks straight out the door when it comes to sports, no matter what they’re playing.

The real problem with all of this is; I live in one of these snow bound cities and I like to go see the games. What is a real fan supposed to do? Well I have divined a solution. I have started a Go Fund Me account to acquire a loge at my favorite venue. It will only cost a measly five-hundred-thousand bucks and I will be warm and cozy. Think of the good you will do by donating to this cause, and it may be tax deductible. Who knows? And I’ll remember the folks who do donate. Each person who does will get a free chicken wing. However, you will have to pay for the shipping.

So, who’s going to be the first to help me achieve my goals. Please don’t start a riot trying to be first, I guarantee I will have no problem taking your cash no longer how long it takes.