(no subject)
Alas for my beloved Nats!
Took Dad & babybro to the ballpark today--a beautiful September afternoon, clear skies and light intermittent breeze. Magical for baseball. My Nats clawed their way up from a six-run deficit to take the lead in the 8th, only to lose it all to the Braves in the 9th.
Wait 'till next year!
I kept serious score. For those of you who aren't yet initiated into the sacred mysteries of the baseball scorecard...it's a tough thing to explain. But when I keep score at a ballgame, I understand things better, and appreciate the game more. I count, for instance, the distressing number of 4-3 putouts, and deduce Smoltz is using a sinker or split-fingered fastball, since Nats hitters seem to be behind & on top of the ball when they make contact. I can be generous--giving a base hit when the official scorer gives an error... Of course, I change my scorecard to conform with the official. But in that split-second I write 1B instead of E-3, the batter gets a hit, and the fielder tries nobly. In a second it is all undone, but the brief moment is enough.
There's something great about baseball games, and baseball fans. I can talk to total strangers at ballgames without fear. I miss a call, and lean over to an old man I have never met before, and ask what the call was, and he gives it to me. Best example so far this season: They run out of stubby pencils to keep score with today. I beg around the stadium concourse for a pencil. A middle-aged gent hears me, and says "can you score with a pen?"
"Sure," I say.
"Here," he says, handing me a pen.
When I go to a baseball game, I'm in America. I sing the Star Spangled Banner. Today, being September 11, an Army sergeant stood on the home dugout and sang "God Bless America," as the whole stadum stood at attention and sang, softly, as they might a church hymn. Little kids root for their home team--a little boy taunts the visitors with SWING BATTER! The crowd boos the umpires. The delerious cheers of a late-innings rally. Cries of vendors and the crack of the bat.
The Redskins won today, and the NFL has begun. But I'm not ready for football. Not yet. Let me have one more Nationals homestand before I'm ready to turn my attention to football.
Took Dad & babybro to the ballpark today--a beautiful September afternoon, clear skies and light intermittent breeze. Magical for baseball. My Nats clawed their way up from a six-run deficit to take the lead in the 8th, only to lose it all to the Braves in the 9th.
Wait 'till next year!
I kept serious score. For those of you who aren't yet initiated into the sacred mysteries of the baseball scorecard...it's a tough thing to explain. But when I keep score at a ballgame, I understand things better, and appreciate the game more. I count, for instance, the distressing number of 4-3 putouts, and deduce Smoltz is using a sinker or split-fingered fastball, since Nats hitters seem to be behind & on top of the ball when they make contact. I can be generous--giving a base hit when the official scorer gives an error... Of course, I change my scorecard to conform with the official. But in that split-second I write 1B instead of E-3, the batter gets a hit, and the fielder tries nobly. In a second it is all undone, but the brief moment is enough.
There's something great about baseball games, and baseball fans. I can talk to total strangers at ballgames without fear. I miss a call, and lean over to an old man I have never met before, and ask what the call was, and he gives it to me. Best example so far this season: They run out of stubby pencils to keep score with today. I beg around the stadium concourse for a pencil. A middle-aged gent hears me, and says "can you score with a pen?"
"Sure," I say.
"Here," he says, handing me a pen.
When I go to a baseball game, I'm in America. I sing the Star Spangled Banner. Today, being September 11, an Army sergeant stood on the home dugout and sang "God Bless America," as the whole stadum stood at attention and sang, softly, as they might a church hymn. Little kids root for their home team--a little boy taunts the visitors with SWING BATTER! The crowd boos the umpires. The delerious cheers of a late-innings rally. Cries of vendors and the crack of the bat.
The Redskins won today, and the NFL has begun. But I'm not ready for football. Not yet. Let me have one more Nationals homestand before I'm ready to turn my attention to football.