Introduction

It's not always easy trying to achieve what one wants.  There's a lot of hard work involved, some luck must be applied, and you have to be at the right place at the right time.  I know that I possess the first quality.  Luck is something else: I'm lucky to know the game, I'm lucky to love, and I'm lucky that I can play it and view it.  But being at the right place and at the right time, well that's where my situation doesn't help.  

You see, I'm currently 24 years old, going on 25.  By July of this year, 2012, I'll be graduating from my major, philosophy, and I'll be beginning my trip unto doing an MBA.  I live in Peru, which, for those of you who don't know, is a country south of Venezuela, sharing the border with Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, amongst others.  Even though I am Peruvian, I was born in the US, which means I'm also American, and, lucky enough, I hold a third citizenship: English.  But this side tracks from the main story.

The thing is, being an Anglo-Peruvian-American, I have access to a lot of multicultural information.  But one thing that I love and which sadly I can not get enough is baseball.  I love baseball.  I watch it any time I can.  A couple of years ago, I began paying the yearly MLB.tv fee to watch every game available.  And, as destiny would have it, when I enrolled at University here, I found out Peru had its own, albeit little known outside the Japanese community, baseball league.  

But sadly, this is not enough.  A couple of years ago, I had to quit the university's team because of studies and work - although I've managed to return now since both have softened.  Also, since baseball is not very well known or played here in Peru, there is little to no support, so the teams are undermanaged, do not have the appropriate equipment and the fields are shamefully unkept.  But still that doesn't matter to the players here; we still go out every Sunday and play from 9 to 5.  In the long run, we still manage, and probably will for many years to come.  Then again, this is not exactly what I want to do either. 

Ever since I began to "worship" the game, I began to get as much information about it aswell.  Buying books on pitching mechanics, batting mechanics, fielding, rulebooks, management and even getting my yearly Baseball America Almanac.  And then, one day last year, I sat down and saw one of the movies that inspired me: Moneyball.  I loved the movie but I had to get the book (I love to read).  

The book gave me this other view of baseball beyond the players and what happens on the field.  It showed me that numbers also play an important role.  It showed me that faith in players attitudes can help the numbers which can help teams.  And it opened a world for me where investigation, journalism and revision are keys to understanding a game.  

That's when it hit me.  Even though I love the game, I love to play, the smell of the leather, the feel of the ball the crack of the bat; what I want more is to share my love and passion with others.  That and I would really like to work in management of one of the organizations, but that's another issue.  

So, how can I get my love out to others?  Well, after reading lots and lots of articles, studying sabermetrics and reading and re-reading moneyball, I thought that maybe analytical criticism through journalism would be the way.  And after a couple of weeks thinking about it and checking some numbers and statistics, I finally decided to start this blog site.  

So I welcome you reader to this site, Around the Basepath.  Here I will try and be as sound as possible on every topic, presenting top news from baseball, trade rumours, fantasy news, in depth analysis of a game, predictions for players, teams, standings based on sabermetric statistical analysis, etc, etc, etc. 

I hope you enjoy your stay on the site and I hope that you can feel as passionate about baseball as I do.  

Welcome,

Martin Alonso