Saturday, November 5, 2011

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

It’s that time of year. You know what I’m talking about. That time when you find yourself watching reruns of Seinfeld you’ve seen a million times. When the days get shorter, and you have no idea what to do at 7:00 PM. You find the sports section of the newspaper sitting around somewhere, flip through it in a few seconds, and toss it aside. Then, one day, all of a sudden, you wake up and you’re watching a Vikings game, and that’s when you realize you’ve hit rock bottom.

It’s Seasonal Affective Disorder—and you’re not alone.

I, like so many of you, am attempting to combat this crippling disease. So today, I would like to share some of the things that have helped me through these dark times.


1. Buy “Ken Burns: Baseball”


You need to do this. Even if you aren’t suffering from SAD. “Ken Burns’s ‘Baseball’” is the greatest thing in the world, except for, um, baseball. And cheese curds. It’s 23 and ½ hours—11 full-length DVDs—of pure baseball glory. It chronicles all of the most important events in baseball history (except the 1991 World Series), and it will make anyone who watches it love baseball. It’s the most watched program on PBS—EVER. The Third Inning (all the DVDs are named after innings) is all about how ridiculous Babe Ruth was. And by ridiculous I mean drunk.

GET IT.


2. Buy the 1991 World Series on DVDs.

Last summer, some company selling the Twins 1991 World Series DVDs sponsored contests by Twins Blogs to give away 1991 World Series DVDs for free. Apparently, my blog did not have the clout to take part. HOWEVER, after entering every contest on all of my fellow Twins’ bloggers blogs, I BAGGED MYSELF SOME 1991 WORLD SERIES DVDS! WOOT WOOT! (Shout out to the awesome BAT SHATTERERS!)

The DVDs are awesome. You get to see all the crowd shots and special segments from the ‘80s (oh wait—‘90s! My bad). The 1991 graphics, by themselves, are worth the money. You can switch the audio from the TV broadcast to the radio broadcast (“TOUCH ‘EM ALL KIRBY PUCKETT! TOUCH ‘EM ALL KIRBY PUCKETT!”). You can watch Kent Hrbek pull Ron Gant off the bag, then rewind and watch Ron Gant’s momentum pull Kent Hrbek off the bag, then rewind again and… seriously what the f*** happened there?


3. Learn about Japanese Baseball

Japanese baseball is really cool. You watch it and it’s like you’ve entered some bizarre-o world where people eat breakfast at night and dinner in the morning. Which you then realize is super awesome. And you get to see stuff like this:




HOLY CARP!

Unlike the USA, professional baseball is the most popular professional sport in Japan. Really—Japan loves the American pastime more than Americans! That might be why they’ve won every World Baseball Classic ever held.

But just remember—the Hiroshima Toyo Carp are the best.


4. Read Books About Baseball

I recently got around to reading “Moneyball”. Eh, it was okay. But the best part was that I really actually felt baseball was alive again. ALIVE. This is important when combating SAD.

Some good baseball books I recommend:
- “Can’t Anyone Here Play This Game?” by Jimmy Breslin
- “Past Time” by Julies Tygiel
- “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis
- “Eight Men Out” by Eliot Asinof (how “alive” this book makes you feel about baseball is to be debated)

Have you read any other good baseball books? Please comment!


5. Hockey!

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!


6. Go to Law School/Med School

I actually don’t necessarily recommend this route—but it’s pretty good as far as battling seasonal affective disorder. As in “I’m so f****ing busy/stressed out I never even realized baseball stopped.” Plus, you’re doing something other people think is awesome, even though you know there are no jobs out there for law school graduates these days.

F***ing s***, I should have gone to med school.


7. Get a Sun Lamp

This is just what my therapist tells me. I can’t really afford one though—anyone know if this works?


Do you have a solution for SAD? Leave a comment!