When I was 10 years old I would wake up in the morning and
the first thing I would do is put on a tee shirt and shorts, and in my bare
feet I would sprint outside to grab the morning newspaper.  It wasn't so that I could read the
editorials, TV guide, or the comics.  It was to see if my favorite baseball player, Vince Coleman, had gotten
any hits or steals the previous night.  I grew up in the New Jersey suburbs just outside of Philadelphia, yet
somehow began following the St. Louis Cardinals prized rookie sensation.   I guess I just couldn't latch
onto Juan Samuel and the Phillies at the time?  I would set the paper down on the kitchen table, toss the
other sections aside and go right to the sports page for the Redbirds box
score.   However, if they had
played on the west coast the night before, I was left with a broken heart
because the game wouldn't make the Philadelphia Inquirer in time to be
published.   There was no
computer on a desk to run to and log onto mlb.com to find out. 

There was Sportscenter on ESPN at the time, but it wasn't
shown non-stop over and over again from 7am until noon showing highlights and a
smaller box score like there is now with players highlighted and interesting
stats filling the screen. There definitely was no ESPN2 or ESPN News running
constantly with a 24-hour ticker on the screen either. 

I didn't have a cell phone, so no text message was sent to
me letting me know that at least they had won the night before, the best I
could do was tune into AM radio and hear the scores to find out.  This is 1985 people not 1965, so the
next morning would come and once again I'd run out to snatch the paper and I'd
finally have the box score, from the night before, yes I was following Vince but
always a day behind on west coast road trips.

My point is this, the new age of information on hand makes
it much easier to follow your favorite teams, players, or coaches, but maybe it
also kills a little excitement or anticipation for the younger generation too? 

I would however, have loved nothing more, than to have
selected Coleman number one in my fantasy baseball leagues had there been such
a thing, or watched his games on mlb.com game tracker, or even done a google
image search for recent pictures of him.   My image search was the few times a year the Cardinals
played the Phillies and I was lucky enough to have Coleman's picture in the
paper taken by the associated press of him sliding into second or third during
another stolen base.   I would
then grab the scissors and cut out the picture (and whatever was on the flip
side that drove my father crazy), and put it into my Vince Coleman scrap album
along with all his baseball cards, historic box scores, and various other items
I was able to find of him in New Jersey.

I shouldn't even get started on the lack of choices of video
games to enjoy playing with the Cardinals and Coleman.  I was lucky enough to have a Commodore
64 and played World Series Baseball where I created the 1987 St. Louis
Cardinals myself and played the likes of the 1927 Yankees and 1980 Phillies
over and over again.  It was so
bad, or I was so geeky, that I used a real scorebook and kept all the season
stats myself with league leaders and made up my own 162 game schedules. 

Finally let me vent on one more issue, now that I'm sounding
more like a 65 year old man than the 32 year old that I am right now.   Stolen bases.  Is it just me, or do we treat Jose
Reyes like an absolute god when it comes to speed and disruption on the base
paths?   The guy hasn't stolen
100 bases in a year, yet and all I hear about is what a terror he is when he
gets on first.   Personally I
like Reyes, as much as I despise the Mets, I like that he is taking it on his
own to push himself and try to be half the thief of say a Coleman, Rickey
Henderson, or Lou Brock.   This year his 38 steals in 68 games has me thinking that he might have
an outside shot of reaching 100. 

Unfortunately, Coleman's career was plagued by an
unpredictable hamstring which hampered his chances of ever catching Henderson's
record of 130 steals in a season, a Busch Stadium tarp machine that stole an
opportunity for a 1985 World Series ring, and a blown call at first base in
Minnesota that took away a 1987 World series ring. He was however a two time
All Star, and let it be known that Coleman holds the all-time professional mark
for stolen bases in a single season with 145 for Macon of the South Atlantic
League in 1983.  He also holds the
current MLB streak of 50 consecutive stolen bases without being caught, and the
MLB rookie single season record of 110 steals in 1985. If a rookie outfielder
did that in this day and age of 24-hour coverage 7 days a week, he'd be on the
cover of every major baseball publication and the subject of millions of hits
on google.

He may not have known who Jackie Robinson was, but he knew
how to cause trouble on the diamond for opposing teams and I'm glad I got to
follow his career my way....