If you're in or around Blacksburg, you can come watch the baseball team any time you want. But for all of who live well outside the area - particularly us older alumni - watching Hokie sports has usually involved football and basketball, and we just end up reading about the scores of all the other sports. For me, the spring means watching baseball, and in my case that means the Washington Nationals. From 2005 until July 31 of last season, they were required watching before they broke up the team. As a result, this spring I found myself checking in on Virginia Tech via the ACCNX after discovering I could watch all their games. The quality of play surprised me, and there was this intangible I noticed where when they got behind, that didn't mean it was over. I must have seen a half a dozen or more games where they were down in late innings, then came back to win with a late home run or spectacular play. It was a marked difference from my local major league team. It soon got to the point the Hokies replaced the Nationals as my primary baseball outlet (I have multiple TVs going on at the same time so the Nats got dropped down to TV No.2 or No. 3) and the same thing was happening with some of my friends. All of a sudden we're all watching Hokie games, texting back and forth to each other, and treating baseball games the same way we treat football games when we're not there. That's not something I ever expected to see happen. And as we all know with sports addictions, once you get hooked, it takes a long time or a really, really bad coach over multiple seasons to kill it. None of this happens unless the team had a special bunch of players (and technology allowed us to watch every game) who put forth an effort on the field that you couldn't help but appreciate. So yeah, I'm disappointed they lost today. But this team very quietly has made a lot of converts to the baseball program out beyond the borders of Blacksburg. Which is something that is going to pay dividends well down the road. And on a personal note, I can remember a few of my old classmates back in the 1970s saying one day when we get old, we're going to move back to Blacksburg and be those old timers in the bleachers watching and talking to each other about Tech baseball. This year we were, only we were at our homes texting each other all across the Southeast. All thanks to a special group of players and coaches, who made it a heck of a lot of fun. For that, coaches and players, I couldn't be more grateful. Thank you.