Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

Let me start by saying that Jeff and I are not the hugest of fans of baseball. Although Jeff loved to play growing up and was a pitcher in college, when he was not pitching or batting, he was entertaining his teammates in the dugout by juggling or some such activity. He never got too excited about watching the game. Everyone else in his family, however, are huge fans of the game.

This year when the season started, I turned to Jeff and said, "Maybe we should try getting into baseball this year." I wanted to do this for two reasons. First of all, so I could follow the conversation when his family was talking about baseball. I also figured, if everyone loves it so much, maybe I too can enjoy this pasttime. So after this chat with Jeff, we saw Marilyn. When Jeff told her that "we're going to be baseball fans this year," she was thrilled. For my birthday I received a Padres jersey, hat and 2 tickets to the game on the 17th. I decided this was a great opportunity to thrust us into being "baseball fans."

The game started off good. We got there a little late, and had to eat as soon as we got there. So we sat down in the 3rd inning and the score was 0-0. We started chatting with the people sitting around us. Since these were Marilyn and Mickey's season seats, they all knew who we were and were happy to finally meet Caleb in person (they all knew Brooklyn very well as she has spent quite a few games running around those seats). Caleb, however, was not so thrilled with watching the game. He couldn't really see what was going on with the actual game, he was bored, and kept crying when the crowd got too loud. We ended up letting him listen to his "songs" on the iPod, which mostly appeased him (although he still cried when the crowd would cheer).

The one thing that turned him around was when the crowd started singing "Take Me Out To the Ball Game," in the 7th inning stretch. This is a song that he likes to sing regularly. He was looking around in amazement as the entire crowd sang a song and knew all the words to one of HIS songs! He then started smiling when the crowd would chant, "Let's go Padres, let's go (clap, clap)." The game itself was not very exciting. It was a pitcher's duel, which means when we packed up and left at the bottom of the 8th, the score was still 0-0.

We left just in time to get stuck waiting for the longest train on the face of the earth to pass by. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we were standing there waiting for 15 minutes while this train went by. However, watching the train was certainly one of the highlights for Caleb.

When we were finally walking to the car, Jeff and I were talking about how quickly the game went, since we were leaving about 2 hours after the game had started and it was already the 9th inning. I then asked Jeff if baseball had "overtime". He reminded me that in baseball it's called extra innings, and yes they would play until someone won the game. We found out the next day that we had gone to the longest game in Padres history. Padres lost in the 22nd inning at 1:21 am! It's a good thing we left when we did.

I'm sorry to tell Jeff's family that this experience really did not help in the quest to make us baseball fans. I realize that this was not a typical game, but I just don't know if I can keep up with how often they play and how slow-moving the games are. Going to the game did make me appreciate the culture of baseball. There is a sense of belonging and comradeship when you are in the crowd rooting for your team to win. Maybe I can appreciate it more when Caleb is older and he can enjoy the game a little more.