I'm back! I'm back, I'm back, I'm back! Three and a half weeks of hell is over! (Or was it four? They say people being tortured lose their sense of time...)
No, really, it wasn't all that bad. The creep bothered me, the cigarette smell bothered me (most of the people over there smoke, and I could smell it on some of them from up to six feet away), the cold bothered me, the broken and uncomfortable chairs bothered me, and most of all, the lack of privacy bothered me. But other than that, it wasn't too bad.
Did you miss me? No, of course not - I wrote every day, and sometimes it was late, but I didn't miss a single day. That's how much I love you.
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Is it okay if I give up on baseball?
I didn't used to watch any sports at all. It's still not what I'd do, given a choice, but if I walk into the living room and Matt's watching a game, sometimes I'll sit and watch it with him. I'm pretty sure I'm watching completely different things than him, but I get my own enjoyment out of it.
Last night, I walked into the living room, and Matt was watching baseball. Now I have to confess, I never really understood the appeal of baseball - either playing it or watching it. The only times I ever enjoyed playing baseball were my own brief moments at bat. Whiff! Whiff! Whiff! "Go siddown." There is no torture worse than being forced to stand in the outfield, facing into the sun and praying to every god you've ever heard of that they don't hit the ball to you because you completely suck at all actions involving hand-eye coordination and don't want to listen to the jeering in the locker room again. And baseball remains stuck in my mind as the sport that pre-empted or cancelled more favorite TV shows as a kid than any other.
I have been to a game live once, and that was actually fun, but I still didn't understand what was going on. I'd gone with K.T. and her mother and Matt (back when Matt was still dating K.T.) and those three spent the entire eleven innings (yes, it went into overtime, or whatever they call it in baseball) reciting bizarre statistics and guessing whether a certain batter would be walked or whatever. They tried to explain it to me, but the only one that made sense was that it's better to walk a batter who's got a reputation for home runs, because then he only gets to first base and the other guys on base don't all score along with him.
But I sat down to watch this game with Matt. He's been sortof into baseball this year, and I've been very slowly collecting snippets of information by a long, arduous process of pestering the hell out of him during games. I thought I had started to get a basic grip on the game. Not the weird, obscure things, and nothing approaching the strategy of it, but the simple rules. I had been confused for a long time over the rule that a foul counts as a strike unless it would be the third strike, but I'd just chalked that one up to some weird aberration.
Boy, was I wrong.
Understand, the vast majority of my understanding of the rules of baseball comes from playing in gym class in junior high and high school. So this is the sum total of my knowledge of the rules of play: You take turns being in the infield and the outfield. The switch takes place after three outs. You get out by having three strikes at the plate, having your ball caught before it touches the ground, or being tagged with the ball in the outfield. When you hear the crack of the bat, you run hell-bent for the next base - but if it turns out to be a foul, you have to turn around and go back. The game is over when the coach decides you've been tortured enough (though I understand in leagues, you have to keep playing until nine innings have passed and one side has more points than another. Poor league players.)
But this is ten years later, and I've been asking Matt stupid questions for an entire season, now, and I'm feeling pretty savvy. I check the little data icon in the corner of the screen, and manage to figure out all by myself that it's the bottom of the 6th, the bases are loaded, and there are two outs. Not bad, eh? I immediately zoom in on the fact that the pitcher for the Mets is licking his lips a lot. I mean, obsessively. He can't stop. (I told you, I don't notice the same things normal people do.) I name him "Lips" and point the licking out to Matt, who looks at me strangely. Then I try to second-guess how each pitch will be counted. I'm right about half the time - I can't seem to tell the difference between a good curve-ball and a ball, and the balls seem to cross the plate awfully low but I decide it's got more to do with the camera angle than my lack of experience.
CRACK! The player at the plate pops the ball high, and runs. The camera follows the ball up, then down, down... smack! into an outfielder's waiting glove. I spare a brief moment of wonder at the skill, because I can't even catch grounders, much less fly balls. The camera jumps to the batter, who - realizing his ball was caught, is slowing down and veering back toward the dugout to get his glove, because now the inning is over.
I frown at the screen, which has gone to commercial. "They didn't say if there were any runs," I complain.
Matt looks at me. "What? They caught the ball - the guy was out."
"Yeah, but what about the guy on third base?"
Matt patiently repeats himself. "They caught the ball. The inning is over."
As far as I'm concerned, he's talking about something completely different than me. I try again. "Yeah, but they didn't say if the guy who was on third base made it home before they caught the ball."
Matt looks at me like I've grown some extra heads. Apparently, the rule I remember from high school - if the batter hits the ball, run like hell - doesn't hold for professional league play. For the entire seventh inning, he tries to explain this to me, and it eventually - almost - makes sense.
"So... If the batter hits the ball up into the air, no one except him can run until the ball's been caught or hits the ground? Doesn't that mean you could wind up with two guys at first base?" Matt's patience is straining thin. I try again. "Okay, so... If you're already on base, you have to touch your base between when the ball is caught or hits the ground-" "No, not hits the ground - just caught!" I had as difficult a time phrasing my questions as understanding the answers. Why do you have to touch your starting base after the ball is caught, but if it hits the ground, you can just keep going? How do you know if a ball is going to be caught or not? Apparently, these are very basic, simple rules of baseball. I never did get it. I gave up rather than irritate him any more.
I think I'll just go back to watching the player's idiosyncracies, and wondering why baseball uniforms make the players' butts look so huge.
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