on A baseball

yesterday was dollar hot dog night at the A baseball club the next town over, and the game both started and got out at about the same time as my mother's opera rehearsals just down the road from the stadium, so my father said, "today is a good day i think for watching a baseball game." quite so! and so we went.

Yea, verily, the game reminded me of all I loved about baseball. Cheap summer seats thirty feet away from home plate, a pitchers' duel, players who weren't overpaid and whiny, campy promotions between the innings. Unfortunately, they played with DHs, but you can't win them all. The starting pitcher for the home team pitched a complete game and he was throwing better stuff at the end than the beginning, staying in even though he was down 3-1. In the bottom of the ninth, the starting pitcher for the away team walked the first batter and was replaced by a sidewinder. He struggled a bit, getting to the point where there was one out and two men in scoring position. The next batter had a long at-bat, then pulled what would have been a game-tying double down the line, but it turned out to be foul. I was thinking, after the fifth pulled foul, that he should just choke up and try to poke it the other way, since any single to the outfield would tie the game, but he grounded out to third on the next pitch, driving in a run and advancing the other runner. And then the next batter hit a line-drive home run on the first pitch. zam! The game barely took two hours - another improvement over major league ball. Granted, the price you pay for that is fewer flashy plays and much poorer baserunning [two mistakes which I would not expect to see past high school varsity ball occurred!], but in these great and final days, one needs some comic relief.