Batter Up! We only have 29 runs...

And the record has been set - the biggest loss in baseball just happened when the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 30-3. The headline calls it a rout. You can hear the screams - or silence - from the locker room all the way up the East coast.

I wasn't a baseball fan at all until some of my wheelchair tennis friends kept putting Phillies games on when we traveled. I was, so to speak, a captive audience. I'd tell them there was a great movie on HBO and they'd look at each other and say "Game's on!" I was appalled. How could you turn down free HBO for a ball game that was not only free all of the time but not something I'd watch? All they did was toss a ball and, most of the time, miss it. Then there was the occasional shot to the dugout where who knows what who would be doing - scratching something or other or spitting. Yuck.

But, after watching a number of games in hotel rooms with my friends, I learned there's a flow to baseball. And, more importantly, there's a social aspect to watching it. You have the slow innings during which you can regroup - refill the chip basket, get another beverage. Then you have innings where the action never stops - not the time to ask three wheelchairs to get out of the way of the bathroom door. The game begins to take on a character to it.

If the teams are off, maybe it's okay to start a card game. Then you can watch the game out of the corner of your eye. It's like being in the dugout - you want to do something else but you have to watch. You're obliged to. You talk about the players. The sports announcers give you interesting tidbits and you comment on them. By the time you're at the seventh inning stretch you really do want to - stretch - in some games.

This is what being a true baseball fan is about. You don't choose to watch the game. You just do. You take it as it is, whether it's a one run game or a 30 run game. Whether your team loses or wins.

And, in my case, whether you initially like baseball or not. Because now, somehow, I too am a baseball fan.

And if you're interested it's been 110 years since a team scored 30 runs in a game. After this game, the Rangers had to play the second game of a doubleheader. Now that's baseball.

[visual description: A red baseball cap with a white letter P on the front is shown - of my team, the Phillies.]