methinks

Baseball

During the two years I was in Little League, I was often hit in the head by the ball, usually from the rear. I'm not sure what the misunderstanding was, but I didn't seem to grasp the concept of forcing an out. A ball thrown from the outfield to either second or third - where I played before being exiled to right field - would arrive unexpectedly.

Certainly my coach or father or exasperated teammates explained this basic rule to me, though I have no recollection of it; perhaps it was an oversight, a rule so basic that it was assumed everyone knew it. Truthfully, I probably attempted to catch the ball more times than I was pegged by it (more out of fear than genuine understanding), but the times I did get beamed left an impression.

After that, baseball's never been my thing, so when my grandpa invited me and the whole extended family to watch the local minor league team, I reluctantly accepted. I envisioned sitting in the sweltering summer heat, watching stocking clad men swing away at a tiny leather ball. Sometimes they'd hit it, most times they'd miss it. And this would go on for hours. The only exciting parts would be homeruns, violent slides into home plate and the occasional hit batter. Sure, there would be hotdogs and beer, but I don't eat hotdogs and had to drive home. How could this be enjoyable?

As it turned out, the events I anticipated came true. It was hot until sunset, and men in stockings were obsessed with a small leather ball for over three hours. The players of the Louisville Bats missed far more than they hit, and only managed to get a man around the bases four times. The visitors, the Durham Bulls (no sign of Kevin Costner), almost tripled the home team's score. Added to that were lethal foul balls that blasted into the brand new yet still minor-league sized stands, punishing delinquent fans who'd not watched the pitch.

What I didn't anticipate is how enjoyable all of that would be. The misperception I had - and I think is commonly held by non-baseball fans - is that the appeal should lie solely in the game play. When you think about it, nearly half of the three hours it took to complete nine innings was not spent actually playing ball. It was warming up between innings, switching pitchers, the catcher talking to the pitcher. It was the "bat dog" fetching bats and taking the umpires bottles of water in a wicker basket. It was the tricycle race around the bases. My point is that half the evening was spent watching a game - which admittedly was more exciting than I remember from my Little League days, though the incoming foul balls did trigger a few painful flashbacks - and half the time was just a relaxing summer evening out-of-doors with good company. I can understand now how people could stay for a double-header of baseball.

After the game, a thoroughly enjoyable evening, a mantra of sorts I learned in the Peace Corps came to mind. "Never say no," was the advice of a long-time Peace Corps trainer. "You didn't come half way around the world to stay at home and watch TV, you came for an adventure. So no matter how tired you feel, how overextended you imagine yourself to be, how uninteresting the proposition sounds, when someone invites you to do something, Never say no. Just go. At the very least you'll have another story to tell."

Good advice then and now.