Not much can save this year except baseball

I have long believed that the happiest memories of all are when wonderful things happen to people you love.

Most of the truly special days of my life have involved the people I love, just as some of the truly awful ones have been when bad things happen to the same people.

June 2010, Houston, Texas

But what about the great days that are just about experiencing things that make you happy? Those days matter too, even if we don't get to share them with anyone else at the time.

During seven decades on Earth, the people I love have mattered the most to me, and acquiring six grandchildren over the last 12 years has given me so much more to enjoy.

After people comes baseball. From my first double-header in 1957 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati to stadiums -- major and minor -- all over the country over the next 60 years, there are no bad times at baseball stadiums.

July 2010, Arlington,  Texas

Well, very few.

I wasn't that lucky when I went to the Rangers' ballpark in the summer of 2010. I got a great field box seat for $80. The rain was supposed to stop, but it didn't and I had to leave to drive back to San Antonio.

Well, at least I saw the ballpark.

Once we moved to Georgia later in 2010, I started doing something I really never thought I would do again -- I watched ballgames on television.

The last four years, I've bought the MLB.TV package so that I can watch Washington Nationals games. I have played Rotisserie Baseball every year since 1991 and a couple of years in the '80s before that.

Baby Shark and Clutch & Drive

The thing was, when baseball struck and cancelled the World Series in 1994, I was so angry with the ongoing games between player and owners that I promised myself if anything like that ever happened again, I would say goodbye to baseball for good.

Of course, I never expected that the previous season would conclude with one of the happiest moments of my life -- the Washington Nationals winning the World Series.

Almost as special as Virginia winning the NCAA men's basketball championship earlier the same year.

So a great year is followed by a ridiculously awful one -- my wife had major surgery for a life-threatening condition, my brother in law died after a long battle with cancer and a beloved fraternity brother died in his mid '50s.

In addition, Donald Trump is still president and there's been no baseball because the owners keep crapping around with the players.

2020, please get lost.

Next year had better be a lot better.