First Sips

Baseball has become my life. To be living in Europe and falling in love with such a niche sport in 2025 feels like both a blessing and a curse. All I want is to talk about baseball, to tell stories about baseball. I’ve never had a summer this quiet, this lonely, yet this meaningful. I’ve gotten lost in the stats, the tactics, the strategies of the game. The films I’ve watched and the books I’ve read played their part of course. But in the end, I found the Red Sox.

My biggest dream is to go to Fenway Park. The team’s history, the soul of the city, the fact that the ballpark still stands like a museum… and that it’s about to celebrate its 113th year. Honestly, I can’t remember ever feeling this level of passion for anything in such a short time.

Just imagine it: you’re at work but thinking about baseball. You wake up and start your day reading baseball. At night, you don’t even want to sleep because you want to watch baseball. Your eyes are heavy, but you fight it off with coffee and cold water to your face because the Red Sox are on TV. Because the games are always played after midnight in Europe, you go to bed at 9, set an alarm, and wake up at 2:10 a.m. For about five months, you live like this. And eventually, you realize there is no greater passion in life.

Meanwhile, the shallow-minded people around you laugh and call you a “Western wannabe.” But the truth is, you’re just living for baseball. Who else out there is like this? Coming home from work, cracking open a couple of beers, watching legendary Red Sox games while eating a pizza, passing out on the couch by 9, only to wake up again at 2:10 a.m. with your “Dirty Water” alarm blaring…

"WE LOVE THAT DIRTY WATER… OOOOH, BOSTON, YOU’RE MY HOME!"

Yes, this is how my “first sips” into baseball feel. I’m an addict now. And though I’m new, I already feel like a Sox fan who lived through the pain of the 1986 Buckner game.

Baseball. The soundtrack of my summer. LET'S GO SOX!