Another Baseball Post

One of the weird things about blogging about baseball is I never really know how much my audience can take. Should I feel comfortable using baseball's weird vernacular? Or should I slow down and explain things like double plays and sacrifices? Baseball has such an extensive and precise idiom that you never know how much knowledge to presume. Everyone knows what a strike is, right? An out? It's a difficult line to walk.

This problem reminds me of a pretty good story. In summer 2005, when I was interning at my former law firm, I went to 3 baseball games on the firm's dime. The first was an Arizona Diamondbacks game in June, when the firm flew us down to Scottsdale for a long weekend of drinking and carousing. At the game, I sat next to a nice girl who didn't know shit about baseball. Feeling compelled to ingratiate myself to my new peers, I happily and patiently spent the entire game explaining baseball to her.

If you've ever had to do this, you realize how difficult it is.

A few weeks later, I sat with 3 other interns in the firm's plush box seats at Yankee Stadium. One of the interns grew up in India and also knew nothing about baseball. Patiently--if not happily--I tried my best to explain the basic rules, followed by the subtleties, to my new friend.

Finally, at the end of July, my firm sent the entire summer class to Yankee Stadium to watch a game from the right field bleachers. Having had virtually all the pleasure of my last 2 baseball games removed by the task of explaining its byzantine rules to the uninitiated, I was intent on watching this game surrounded by friendly, knowledgeable baseball fans.

I finally settled on two guys, both smart, longtime fans. I told them about my experience at the previous two games, and the guys, fully appreciating my pain, agreed not to leave my side.

So we're at the game, enjoying the hell out of it. We're talking baseball and I'm feeling good. Around the third inning, one of my buddies says he's got to take a leak. By this time everyone has shown up and settled into their seats. But just to be safe, I scooch halfway into the empty seat to my left and spread my knees, trying to take up as much room as possible.

Almost immediately I hear a thick accent calling my name. Reluctantly, I look over my shoulder and see one of our German exchange interns, five rows behind me, literally climbing over everyone between us. He hurdles the last row and lands his right foot in the space my small-bladdered friend had just abandoned.

"David," he says excitedly, "you know all about baseball. Please tell me what I am watching!"

It was a long game.