Hochman: Wait nearly over for Baseball You – STLtoday.com

You’ve got a week. Seven days to be your normal self, the serene, sane soul you are when the St. Louis Cardinals aren’t in season. A week from Sunday, the Cardinals will play the Pittsburgh Pirates, and you will morph into Baseball You, this irrational version of yourself that allows 25 strangers to become marionettes of your being, and your well-being.

The Cardinals weigh. They weigh on you, on your sanity, on your conscience. But it’s a welcomed weight, and worth the wait, because when baseball begins, you are rejuvenated, your priorities askew, as you’re Baseball You.

Baseball You allows the Cardinals into every aspect of your life: what you wear, what you watch, what you think about certain cities, what you talk about with friends or strangers who also speak “Cardinals.”

Baseball You lets a game control your emotions, to the point that sometimes you can’t control your emotions. Baseball You thinks that old John Wooden quote is poppycock, because you get too high after a win and too low after a loss, and even though it’s May against the Brewers, you worry that the loss will have a direct effect on the Cardinals’ playoff chances, and even though, come on man, it’s only May, the reality is that loss just might effect the playoffs.

Baseball You, each day, in some way, follows the game. Sometimes sporadically, other times intently. Some games, you’ll sit on your couch like you’re a coach, monitoring every single pitch, or managing the game like you’re Mike Matheny, managing to second-guess bullpen management. Other times, the game will just be on, wafting, as you sift through the house, catching a catch here and there. Before you get out of the car in the afternoon, you’ll turn to KMOX, so when you get in the car that night, to pick up your kid or dinner, the game will be waiting for you inside. Baseball You can follow one game a dozen different ways in the same night, almost like you are piecing together a collage: You follow an inning via tweets, get an update on the ESPN app, receive a text from a buddy about a play you missed, catch an inning on the radio, another on TV, and then relive the game via a Derrick Goold game story or an email chain the next morning with your chums.

Baseball You devours box scores for breakfast. You allow yourself to dine on hot dogs at the ballpark, because hot dogs just taste better at the ballpark — it’s science, you know.

Baseball You feels a tingle when you first spot Busch Stadium from the highway. Baseball You knows Snake the Scalper and meets at Musial. Baseball You loves watching batting practice. It’s a weird obsession, arriving early to experience the cacophony of bats crack and fungos fungo.

Baseball You gets a thrill when, in a different city, you spot someone wearing a Cardinals cap.

Baseball You wishes Mike Shannon had officiated your wedding. Baseball You wishes Dan McLaughlin narrated every book on tape ever. Baseball You looks forward to obscure references to producer Jim Jackson or organist Dwayne Hilton or That One Guy because it makes you feel like you’re part of a club.

Baseball You wishes you could type a backwards K in a text. Baseball You becomes acclimated to acronyms. War is now spelled in all caps, even if you’re an old-school fan who wonders what it is good for. There’s SB and CG and WHIP and BABIP and, as so often happens, a baseball nerd will make reference to ASOH.

Baseball You sees numbers in numbers, like when an item costs $1.12. GPAs resembled ERAs. No. 1 means The Wizard, No. 6 means The Man. And Baseball You gets cracks a sly smile when you check into a hotel room and, sure enough, you’re given room 1908.

Baseball You is better at math than regular you is at math, because regular you might not know the square root of 81, but Baseball You, when it comes to statistics, is like that freaking “A Beautiful Mind” guy.

Baseball you thinks “freeze” and “Willy” and “Aussie” are spelled wrong.

Baseball You loves it when a new player enters your life; a new Cardinal is like a new friend, and you’re ravenous to learn about them, what makes them them. This year, you’ll meet Aledmys Diaz and Jeremy Hazelbaker and, the fun of the season, surely some player via a trade, and when that guy gets his new number, you quickly list all the old Cardinals who once wore that number.

Baseball You loves baseball so because baseball makes up all the good stuff that defines both you and Baseball You: your passion, your loyalty, your sense of humor, your sense of style, the way you love and the way you care.

Baseball You is in the on-deck circle, impatiently waiting for this column to end, for this day to end, for this coming week to start and thus end, because next Sunday means the real thing, the regular season and the annual rite of saying so long to Offseason You.