Went to the Mariner's game on Friday night. I always say that I love going to baseball games because you don't actually have to watch baseball to know what is going on or to have a good time. Because baseball games are full of excitement and camaraderie entirely separate from the slow pace hits and really quite depressingly high rate of strike outs.
I like the game, don't get me wrong, but I'd never watch it on TV. That would be like watching golf. Only exciting if it's high stakes. What I like best about baseball games, aside from good company of course (a must for a game with an average of a run just every 22 minutes), is the bits at the stadium. There's a sense of collective entertainment when you're waiting for one out of three attempted swings to be successful.
My favorites are:
1. The Wave.
I get excited watching The Wave circle the ballpark. I get disappointed when the lowlifes before my section give it up. I wonder what the record is for most laps around a stadium (It's 31! And might have hit it big in Seattle!). Regardless, it fills me with glee.
2. Singing Take Me Out To the Ballgame
It's the closest thing I have to Old Irish Drinking Songs (capitalized, because it's a Thing, you know). I don't go out drinking in modern times in America, where I'm sure they don't still sing OIDS. I can only picture the experience from movies (apparently only Disney movies at that). And from ball games. Where hours (literally hours) of passive game-watching is punctuated by a burst of collective participation. Doesn't it just make you want to link arms with your neighbor and smash peanut shells in with your toes as you sway from side to side? It does me, and I appreciate when others get into it even more than I do.
3. Special displays of orchestration
Friday night we saw a fireworks show set to Taylor Swift and Ellie Goulding (really well-timed, better than I've ever seen before). It was an abnormal night where the majority of attendees actually stayed past the 7th inning stretch (a rarity for me, I'll admit) and it was so great.
But even without special occasions, I love the little dance the sand sweepers do; and when groups of 50 all wear the same thing and cheer; and costumes. I've never joined the dress up crowd (I have a blue and green plaid shirt I wear to all professional sporting events in Seattle [Sounders, Seahawks, and Mariners colors all look pretty similar]), but I love to see it on the jumbo-tron, especially when accompanied by dancing
Three more things I like:
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| Good company |
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| A cute baby |
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| Knit beard on a handsome man |
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