When you’re happy about something, it’s good to share it. And when you’re unhappy about something, it’s also good to share it. But if that something is the performance of your baseball team, and you live in the UK, you’ll have your work cut out finding anyone remotely interested in your feelings on the matter. It’s a strange, lonely place to be.

If my football team let me down, there are plenty of people to talk to about this. Same if they’ve managed to win. But if I’ve been up half the night watching the Tampa Bay Rays lose 6-1 to the Orioles in Baltimore, in the morning there is nowhere to take my dismay. And it’s somehow worse if they’ve won. Does a tree falling in a forest make a sound if there’s no one there to hear it? No idea. But I do know that if the Rays have come from behind to win a game in the 13th innings, and there’s no one with whom to share the happy news, it soon feels as if it might not have happened at all.

This all started when I went on holiday to St Petersburg, Florida, 15 years ago. For some reason, the Tampa Bay Rays play in St Pete’s rather than the city of Tampa. I suppose it’s like Grimsby Town’s ground being not in Grimsby but in Cleethorpes. Just with better weather. I’m not sure why the Rays’ ballpark isn’t where it logically should be but, then again, there’s lots of things about baseball that remain mysterious to me, none of which get in the way of me being hooked to it. And I’ve been hooked since that first Rays game.

Since it’s a somewhat unfashionable team, the place was half empty. Being........

© The Guardian