Both of these things sound a bit confusing and strange. They both are. So let me explain one by one - first the pitching in teh basement thing. That isn't all that weird - that is, after all, the origin story of many a pitcher - granted its usually kids no a farm pitching rocks against a barn until their old man or the town crank exclaims "By Golly, that boy's got a cannon!" or some such. I guess sometimes it was in the basement. It was for me, starting around that 2003 point when I really got into baseball, and my parents had a TV in the basement, and I was old enough to watch playoff games until late. It was a nice setup, me standing in the middle, facing the wall on the short end, with the couch in front of me. An old,, fairly useless couch for its stated purpose (comfortably seating people) but wonderful for its true purpose - eating fastballs. Now, it was probably only 20 feet away, so even if I could throw heat there wasn't enough room to reach max velo - but I threw all types of junkballs at that thing - eventually wearing out the springs (I also played tennis - teh couch height more or less the same as a net!). I did this from that 2003 or so date through around 2012, when the couch finally just gave out beyond repair.
This should've been the end of it - I turned 21 taht year anyway, so a natural point to stop. But that year we replaced the couch with a large screen TV that I bought with my sign-on bonus money from my first job. That TV is god well beyond its years - it still wroks really well in 2026. That sits where the couch did - but that just made me get more inventive. You see, if I stood where I used to when pitching at the couch (now TV), I could turn 90 degrees to my left and face the further wall - this one about 40 feet away. Now, there was nothing on that wall but a dresser. But you see, that's when i got the idea that I could atke one of the four mattresses we had in teh basement (a lot of extra sleeping space!), prop it up against the dresser and alas, a slgihtly less springy version of the couch, at alength a bit closer to actual home plate. Thus was born the second era of this game - one far less frequent as it would match up only with the few weekends in October that I was at home (so say two to max three a year), but oh so fun.
If anything, more fun - the extra space made the pitching more real, if anything. The weirdest part of all of this is I didn't play little league. Not that I would've been some star never to be discovered. But who knows? My parents weren't anti-sports - I just never asked to play baseball I guess. I played youth soccer, tennis and basketball (my main love), and even outside of organized sports, was a crack roller hockey player (honestly, if roller hockey was a school sport and not "ice" hockey, I would have been varsity), but other than this pitching against the couch thing, never really played baseball. I loved baseball though - I still do even if my "watching the games" interest has waxed and waned more than maybe any other sport. The pitching against the couch was a magical release, and as no one would be hitting the balls but I could see the movement of my curveball or 2-seamer (the change-up was always out of my grasp...), I could pretend I had the great command.
And this brings us to the second part of this - the 2027 thing. See, when I was a kid (and this is like from 10-15 at its peak) I would make up players and teams and stats and built out storylines way into the future. Since that was 2001-2006, I would often pick the late 2020s for baseball, and weirdly the 2030s-2040s for football to create these conconted leagues and worlds. Actually teh delay on football makes sense as that definitely happened a few years after I started doing this for baseball. Now, this is definitely spectrum behavior - but I'm fine with that - it was glorious and fun to go back to. In this world, I had created a San Francisco Giants ultimate dynasty that went from 2027-2033 in which they would win four World Series, including three straight from 2027-2029. It started after an epic loss in seven to the Mets in the 2026 NLCS. The dynasty Giants would peak at a 110-52 record in 2028, led in all three years by their star all-time great Center Fielder Joe Montero, and their nearly as great pitcher Jeff Freeman.
Looking back at my fake stats for these teams - it is a great time capsule of how the game has changed. The stats Montero put up would be in-line with say prime Albert Pujols when I made him up, but would be earth shattering today - his magical 2027 season was a .361 / .456 / .728 with 56 HRs, 141 RBIs. Now, that was his best year, but to take a more on-the-nose comparison - his 2026 was .325 / .415 / .626 with 46 HRs and 134 RBIs. Obviously these are comical lines, but in the mind of someone in 2010 or so, they were just "a bit better than the best player", not something out of a dream. If anything, the stats for pitching great Jeff Freeman were even crazier. His best year was 2030, where he went 24-5, pitching 257 innings of 1.89 ERA, with 339 Ks and a 0.83 WHIP. Funnily enough, the WHIP and ERA aren't crazy - players had better seasons thereafter like from DeGrom or more recently Miz, but the innings count is just not possible. This is less possible than a Montero season.
My fake stuff wasn't limited to just this dynasty Giants team, though for no other did I go that far of making up full careers. There was a close-to-dynasty that would follow from them in the name of the Portland Bogies - what's weird is I don't think I ever defined if this was an expansion team or someone relocated to Portland - but they were the Bogies, they played in a riverfront ballpark with a makeshift Evergreen forest beyond the left-center field wall. It was all a dream, but so damn fun. But it went back to that fake dynasty Giants team, where I would generally throw against the couch by pretending to be the Giants, either Freeman or their #2 John Palyout (no idea where I got taht name from....). I even had made up pitching motions for them, that of course weren't based on any real pitcher to any degree (other than Freeman had some loose correlation to Cliff Lee - but right handed). This was all weird, I admit, but all so fun the darkness of my basement.
What really hits home is we are finally at the precipice of a year where these fake years are now reality. I would mock pretend to be pitching Game 4 of the 2027 NLCS while watching Game 2 of the 2013 ALCS and we are almost there. In a way, its thrilling to see how different everything is, but also sad that the fantastically great careers I made up for Freeman and Montero are all but impossible in today's game. But in that way I am so glad their fake career existed to document what we may have lost, or what I have lost in finally growing up (way too late) from this whimsy.
**quick aside - teh football version of this is teh 2037-2046 Houston Texans dynasty, QB'd by Jake Wright - which while other not predicting the advent of a 17-game season, has numbers that would look not out of place in 2026, or in 2009 or so when I first invented him. If anything, the most ridiculous version of this is in Tennis, as I've written about previously, concocting a guy named Juan Marino Icar taht would win 16 slams - which when I made him up would be the record, but doing so by 2022 or so. I made him up in probably 2006, of course in no way thinking Nadal himself would win slams in 2022**
It's interesting since both of these phases of my life are over, mainly for the same reason - and that reason is not that I am 36. It is because I no longer have a basement. The making up fake careers and what not hasn't been a thing in probably 10 years - it is notable that when I post a pic of Joe Montero's career later, that I had him as a rookie in 2018. We are well into his career. But the throwing baseballs at a mattress continued thereafter, and gave me a reason to load up those files once a year and marvel. And also have fun, and ultimately that is what it is about. Throwing baseballs at a matress in dim light in a basement, with actual playoff baseball going on 90 degrees to my right on a large screen was a fun glow up from when it was throwing baseball at a couch with playoff baseball going on a small screen 90 degrees to my right. That's connective right there, and one of those memories that I will never not forget, and more than that, never not regret that I squeezed every ounce out of.
Jeff Freeman's Career (and yes, in my weirdness, I conconcted a weird medical story of why he had a gap between 2030-2033)
And Joe Montero's career which would probably rank him as like the best baseball player ever, or 2nd to Willie Mays.
And finally - the Giants dynasty - my stats from earlier were wrong, they would win five world series spanning from 2021-2025.
