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Jamie Burke, #15

The Gift of Baseball:

See this baseball? Jamie Burke, catcher for the Seattle Mariners, gave this to me last month! Our mutual friend, Doby, invited us to meet Jamie at Ponderosa Pizza in La Pine. Jamie was in the area for a hunting trip with his friends. Thank you, Jamie, for the cool baseball.

I am a big fan of Jamie Burke, who grew up in Roseburg, Oregon.

I am a relatively new fan of baseball though. It all began when I met my Best Friend Husband a few years back. He is a lifelong fan, and has played baseball and softball for years and went to see the L.A. Dodgers often when he was little. When we became an item, he bought a big screen tv and all of a sudden baseball became interesting to me. First of all, I could see what was going on. Second of all, I had a tutor explaining the game, the history and the players. (Before my sexy new tutor with the big screen tv showed up on the scene, I did not even realize that pitching was offense. I kept thinking, these guys get paid so much money and they can't even hit the ball, what is this all about? I am not joking about this.)

We are Seattle Mariners fans, because my husband spent many years living in Washington, and they are on almost every night during the summer in our area. But my interest really flourished during the 2004 play offs between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. That was a big, big deal, and Boston won, finally. But something else happend ... I found my first secret boyfriend. (Mrs. G. got me thinking about secret boyfriends. Read Derfwad Manor if you want to learn more).