One of the Crowd

Work was slow the other day, so slow that my med cart was parked directly in line of sight of the TV and I actually found myself watching a ball game. I put this in italics because I have never, to my knowledge, watched a ball game before and having lived in the US for close to 25 years I think this must be something of a record. 

Context: while the SuperBowl was on last year I was overheard telling a patient that I sometimes have to think about whether it's football or baseball. 

Further context: I occasionally have trouble remembering which game the 49ers play. Is it the one with the bat or the one with the big shoulders?

Now privy to those humiliating admissions, you will probably not be surprised to learn that the rules of baseball remain mysterious to me. I know there are bases and people run around trying to get to them. I know there's a pitcher and a batter and something called a pop-up foul. (I know this because Marvin the Ape caught a pop-up foul in The Escape of Marvin the Ape, which I read to my daughter 699 times.)

Buster Posey was playing Sunday. He did some awesome things that people got very excited about. There were also a couple other players with names I liked, such as Angel Pagan and Hunter Pence. I said them under my breath a few times. Some of my patients thought I was a Giants fan. A couple actually thought I knew the rules of the game and started talking to me in a foreign tongue about outfielders and grand slams. I nodded a lot and yelled "YEAH!" when the TV announcers did.

When I came home I told my husband excitedly about the game and asked him what a grand slam was. He said it was when all the bases were loaded. That really cleared it up for me. Plus I told him that a guy in the audience caught Buster Posey's ball. "It's not called the audience," my husband said, wincing. I asked him what it was called. He said the crowd. Ok, so baseball isn't an Oscar Wilde play or the symphony. But seriously, you pay all that money for a seat and you're just part of the crowd?

I asked my husband what a pop-up foul was. He told me. He said maybe we should get tickets and go to a game. I don't know though. It took me 25 years to learn what a pop-up foul is. I don't want to rush into being a member of the crowd.