What draws you to baseball?

With the first game of spring training still over a week away, I thought that now I would pose this question to the audience out there - What is it that draws you back to baseball year after year?

For me, no matter how many times I wanted to just kind of forget about it during the mediocre years of the Padres, I still found myself drawn to the team once the end of February rolled around. While I can't quite decide what it is about the game (probably the strategy involved and the battle of wits between managers when making moves), I still remember the exact moment I became a fan.

I believe I mentioned this when Tony Gwynn was inducted into the Hall of Fame but as a really young kid I began collecting football cards. However, one day my best friend brought over his baseball card collection and showed me this card:












While there may be nothing extremely exciting about this card, for some reason I was drawn to it and Gwynn from then on. Whatever effect that card had on me still holds me to this sport this day and even though my wife can't understand why I will watch full Padres games on TV whenever I get the chance, I personally know it goes back to that first card.

So now I open up the floor and ask, What draws you to baseball?