Hi Everyone! All 17 of you . .  What have y’all been up to? I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to .. I’ve been up to my ears in baseball. Many of you already know that I enjoy football and basketball but baseball, baseball was an acquired taste . . . let me just say here that I’ve always liked baseball MOVIES (and really who doesn’t?), but the actual watching of actual baseball . . .yeah . . .an acquired taste. (but so was sushi, can you believe it!?)
It’s just that you have to do a lot of mental investing to get all of the good juices out of baseball. With football and basketball, it’s easier pickins . . you KNOW what I mean. My first memories of baseball are of my dad and uncles simultaneously getting up from the slumpy sofa and shouting for joy when the Dodgers did something good . . that was in 1978 .. so I was 5 going on 6 that summer. . . so yeah I didn’t know what baseball was but I knew it made people happy . . . little did I know that how powerful it was in making people sad .. very very sad. . from little leaguers to fully grown men. My next memory is of the 1981 World Series, we were living in Ohio by then and we rooted for the Dodgers and by default we didn’t like the Yankees (It felt alright to like Reggie Jackson though . . weird right?). Reagan was in office and this is how I knew that our family was/were Dodger fans and by default National Leaguers and that we were Republicans . . . . (the moral of THIS part of the story is that kids are VERY impressionable) And then there’s the 88 World Series, I was in high school and there was an earthquake (I might be wrong about the year on this one) and we Christians were really excited that Orel Hershiser was the "Bulldog" and that he was doing really well (I sheepishly report that I was way more interested in how Taft High’s football team was doing that year so I have absolutely no memory of the Gibson homerun, I now know that it was a HUGE deal). This year, I’ve gone to more Dodger games that I did all of the other years combined (I think). Tonight I watched the Dodgers lose to the Rockies in a heartbreaker . . .Let me tell you what I’ve learned about Dodgerdom this year .. Unlike football, where your team can only break your heart once a week, in baseball they can bring you down up to 5x a week! I learned that Dodger merchandise and paraphernalia is WAY expensive. AND people buy LOADS of it! I learned that if you wear Dodger stuff at the game, it’s no big deal because everyone there is wearing your same outfit. If you wear Dodger stuff anywhere else in LA, it’s like being part of a not-so-secret club, people suddenly think that they can talk to you because you’re wearing a jersey. More often than not, it starts off with how the bullpen is doing but then it always transitions into some other non-related topic. . . (I imagine it’s a little like being part of the “in” crowd in high school . . .not that I have any experience with that . . ) I learned that like other sporting events, the people who sit around you are the people you get to high five (TOTAL strangers but all happy about the same homerun we all just saw . . . this is totally a sociology paper waiting to happen right?) . . .okay so it isn’t THAT surprising . . but here’s what is . . .All bets are OFF in the parking lot .. .just 100 yards away, we are no longer high fiving friends . .we are adversaries on a mission to get out of the lot as quickly as possible. Okay it’s not THAT bad, but there is a definite SHIFT in the dynamic. . . (It’s kind of like that at the Rose Bowl too so this isn’t that particular to Dodgerdom, but coupled with the whole not-so-secret club thing, the contrast SEEMS more severe.) I also learned that Dodger stadium has a sort of caste system. It’s not like India because you can switch, but yeah . . . there’s a caste system. When you sit at field level, well the world is your oyster . .you can move about freely within the stadium and snack at any of the concessions provided, you want sushi, go right ahead, you feel like a Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl’s Jr? Make your way to the Reserve Level and get yourself one! Garlic fries? Mais bien sur! There’s even an elevator to take you where you want to go! When you decide to go to the game on the cheap and get $5 tix from Stubhub for the Top Deck, well your choices are limited. You may only have Dodger Dogs, none of the other fancy stuff for you. No, no, no (picture someone wagging their finger at you) . . Don’t even get me started on the differences in bathrooms; I think that they even have different quality TP on the different levels. The stall doors seem to close all the way on the Field level, the same can’t be said for the other levels. . . . I also learned that I really really don’t like the beachballs. The Scrooge McDuck in me gets really annoyed when the kids around me suddenly go crazy trying to get their hands on the thing .. I cheer when the usher finally gets it or when someone punches it off our level (My cheer used to be only on the inside, but now I cheer out loud - I'm brazen right?) This is why sitting in row A or B of any level is good, the risk of beachball disturbances is low.
About baseball in general ..
I learned that you need to have 2 balls, 2 strikes, 2 outs AND 2 men on for the deuces to be wild .. it can’t just be 2, 2 and 2 . . .oh no .. there must be 2 men on. I learned that a man being on 2nd is "scoring position", yeah . . . I didn’t know that, but it makes sense . . . kinda .. I learned that the 2nd base guy doesn’t really stay on 2nd base . . he’s more like the short stop for the other side of the field . . yeah I didn’t know that either so when I found out it really eased my mind about that gap . . I always wondered, I really did. There’s a lot more, but this has been way too long and I’m boring MYSELF now, so I can’t even imagine how you’re feeling . . . Next time: The National Anthem vs God Bless America and Don’t Stop Believin .. | 
