Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I love sports. I love to play them and I love to watch them. Football and baseball are close in the favorite to watch category but in two entirely different scenarios. I love to watch football on TV. I have lost my voice many a Sunday screaming at the screen. I think I would make any coach on the sidelines proud. I do not enjoy watching it live at all.

My first football game was Steelers vs. Browns at the old Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. The tailgating was insane and I thought I was in for a real treat. I couldn't’t wait to get inside and to our seats. It was the first time I experienced what happens during commercial breaks. At home I can run to get a beer, a snack or you know, whatever. I was sitting watching the play and heard the ref’s whistle and watched the players just standing around. I asked my husband “What ARE they DOING? Why are they just standing there? The time-out is way too long”. He calmly told me “oh, it’s a commercial break”. Huh? That killed it. From that moment on, I watched the TV’s that were above my head. I could see the plays better and actually preferred to watch the commercials than the standing around.

Baseball on the other hand is totally different. I find it tediously boring to watch in my living room. I can sort of watch if it’s a play-off or series game. But get me in a stadium and I am in heaven. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the atmosphere, maybe it’s the snack person yelling “Rotten Candy, get yer rotten candy- sugah in a bag!” Could be that it’s the sound of the bat connecting with the ball that gets lost in TV land. When you are sitting there and you hear the sweet sound of the crack, it doesn’t matter if it is a wooden “whack” or a metal “ping”, the feeling is the same - you know that the sweet spot has just been coaxed to send a ball sailing somewhere in the outfield. It’s a unified feeling across the board from major leagues right down to the little leagues- will it go or get caught?

I have been enjoying little league games the past three weeks. Our team is fourth in the play-off series and will surely be a nail biter! Our bat will retire soon from the “official” field, but I can’t wait to go and relax with the family playing a pick-up game in the back yard where we can all spend a lazy, hazy summer evening together.