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Are you ready for some baseball?

The joke’s sure on LoCO correspondent Tom Trepiak, because while he peregrinates across the country in search of the perfect baseball experience, nothing less than the goddamn Pacific Empire League title is on the line right here at home, as your Humboldt Crabs open up the championship series against their perennial enemies, the big bad Healdsburg Prune Packers.

It all starts at 7 p.m. in Arcata’s Crabs Stadium, which squares call “the Arcata Ball Park.”

Baseball, if you’re unfamiliar, is the perfect sport for people who don’t like sports. You only have to pay attention like 10 percent of the time, if that. The majority of your energy will be focused on drinking beer, eating hot dogs, bullshitting with your friends and ridiculing the opposing team. It’s great family fun.

In case you haven’t checked in to Crabs baseball in a while, here’s what you need to know. Whereas, like, 20 years ago, the Crabs basically played every game at home and absolutely smashed all comers, last season they and a few other regional squads formed a new league — the Pacific Empire League. Since then the Crabs have had to play on something like equal footing. Last year they went a ho-hum 16-12 in league play and didn’t even make the championship series.

This year, though! This year they went a ho-hum 17-8 in league play and did make the championship series, thanks to a last-minute Rube Goldberg-like series of improbable events that are best told by our friend Ray Hamill over at HumboldtSports.com.

That puts the underdog Crabbies up against the Pacific Empire League’s seemingly unstoppable juggernaut. Someone should check on what they’re packing into these Prune Packers’ prunes, because Healdsburg cruised to an easy PEL championship last year, then went 22-5 in the league this year, beating the Crabs in five of their last six meetings behind the talents of players like Tucker Bougie, Kaden Taque, Hayden Hattenbach, Maximo Martinez, Drake Digiorno and Hideki Prather. (No idea if these are their best players, but they have some of the best baseball names on the roster.)

So it’s gonna be an uphill climb for the Crabbies! Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose! Get out there and cheer and jeer! They need your support! There’ll be a second game in the series down in Healdsburg — perfect place for a pitcher named “Tucker Bougie,” by the way — on Thursday and, if needed, a series-clincher in the same place on Friday.

Go, Crabs! Go, goddammit!