I'm often asked who my favorite baseball player is, and my response is always the same: "Yes, I have a favorite baseball player, and I'll tell you who it is when I come over to your house to eat Otter Pops and play Metroid because I am 10 years old." It's always been a silly, almost insulting, question. But I might have actually come to terms with something: I'm thinking that Sergio Romo is my favorite baseball player.
This might have put me over the top:
When I saw the picture of the bobblehead, I realized that I would trade my cat for one, even if the person on the other end of the deal was a noted cat-sausage tycoon. I have a large collection of bobbleheads, and I'm not ashamed of it except for all the time. Yet I'm pretty sure that as soon as I get my grubby paws on one of those Romo bobbleheads, it will be my favorite of the bunch.
And when I'm surfing through Giants highlights on MLB.com, I gravitate towards the Romo highlights. Sliderin' is serious business. When Romo finishes one of his dominant innings, I usually rewind the DVR to watch it again during the commercial break.
Just watched that six times. Romo with a 91-m.p.h. fastball that moves over the outside corner reminds me of Happy Gilmore learning how to putt. And when I'm not staring at Barry Bonds's page on Baseball Reference, I'm usually staring at Romo's page.
| Year | G | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 1.50 | 65 | 48.0 | 29 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 70 | 0.9 | 13.1 | 14.00 |
When I get sucked into that BB-Ref vortex, it usually leads me to waste time looking up Romo factoids. Did you know that SO/BB ratio is the third-highest in baseball history for anyone who appeared in more than 40 games? Did you know that he has the highest career SO/BB in history for anyone who's appeared in more than 200 games? Did you know he didn't allow an earned run in July or August?
Probably. But like me, you don't care that you've read it before. You'll read it over and over and over. We're spoiled in a lot of ways. Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner, Pablo Sandoval ... when I was young, it felt like Jack Clark or Brad Wellman were the only options for favorite-player status. Now there are a whole bunch for the 10-year-old in all of us to choose from.
But Romo's my guy. He avoided arbitration today and signed a one-year deal. I probably did a silent-yet-earnest fist-pump when I read the news. As dorky and immature as it is, I think I've become what I've been avoiding for over a decade: a grown man with a favorite player. Bonds help us all.