baseball, sort of

I didn't really remember loving baseball before, though when I thought about it I knew that wasn't right.

I went to most of my brother's Little League games when we were growing up and remember fondly my parents' intense anxiety when the coaches had him on the pitcher's mound -- not that he would do poorly, exactly, but that he would damage some other parents' kid. (For the record, I don't think he ever did.)

I was a devoted reader of John R. Tunis's fictional series about the Brooklyn Dodgers, and had something of a crush on The Kid Form Tomkinsville's Roy Tucker as a young girl.

One of my favorite memories from childhood is a particular Yankees game that my family and our friends the Crows attended together. I can't remember who the Yankees were playing that day, and I certainly don't remember if the Yankees won. What I remember is that we snuck the most delicious sandwiches in with us, from Taste of Italy up in Mohegan Lake. And I remember that Amy and I spent the afternoon running around pretending we were gladiators leading a revolt of the slaves in the midst of these evil Roman stadium games.

One of my favorite memories from late adolescence is a particular Yankees game that I attended with my best friend and her parents. We ducked away to go smoke a cigarette and then got on line for pretzels and were appalled at a couple men leering at us, in all our eighteen-year-old semi-punked-out glory, and decided that if we started kissing each other they'd leave us alone. Little did we know then that this was more likely to just exacerbate the problem. Little had I known before, despite having loved her for years, how nice it could be to kiss a girl.

The game last night, the first I've been to in awhile, seemed somehow pared down to its essence, with no fantasizing and no leering, whistling men. I do not follow the Mets or the Braves, and so had no high hopes or pending disappointments to harbor. I do not follow baseball at all, really, other than to know my family largely roots for the Mariners these days, and to have been inordinately delighted at the meeting of Ichiro and Obama.

I was at Citi Field last night with a friend, and with two of her friends: one adorably decked out in Mets paraphernalia, the other patiently explaining the intricacies of the game (and seeming a little surprised that I knew about the clean-up spot, knew not to bunt when there are two outs, but did not know that K's are strikeouts - electronic scoreboards with all their acronyms did not exist in Tunis' world).

It's funny how there can sometimes be a certain kind of stillness, a certain kind of silence, in the midst of great motion and the roaring of crowds. The evening was hot and muggy, as August in New York so often is, though there was an almost cooling breeze wafting over the field. And the sky was surprisingly clear despite predictions of yet more storms, though there was a strange haze, a fogginess, hovering over the grass, over the men in their uniforms, over the sparkling lights and chanting shouting clapping thousands.

It seemed almost magical, this vast new space and the people encircled there, the criers hawking their ice cold water and their salty crunchy peanuts, their blue-dyed spun-sugar cotton candy and their Nathan's Famous hotdogs and their Bud Light by the 16-oz. cup at (a mere) $6.50 a pop.

It seemed almost magical and I found myself feeling more pleased than I had anticipated, content in a way I had not imagined possible during those days between the accepting of the invitation and the first pitch of the night.