August 10, 2006
Take me out to the ball game
My very first baseball game: San Francisco Giants vs. Washington Nationals. Until that moment I had never understood the rules or even why is it such a cult sport in the USA. I kinda like it, to be honest. The game in itself is nothing much but it's one interesting cultural experience.
Firstly, it's the laziest game ever followed closely by chess. The pitcher throws the ball, the batter bats it (or not) and all the other players linger around, scratching themselves. Sometimes, when the batter actually hits the ball some of the players have to run a bit. If they see that the opponent team will easily catch the ball and throw it back to the base they are trying to reach, they won't even bother. The big aim is to hit a home run and I suspect that the extra motivation - beside the points - is that since the ball will be out of reach, the players can do a victory walk from base to base until they get home instead of sprinting which must be very tiresome. All the players are chubby - not to say plain fatsos - and I was marveled that they could actually run at a fair speed.
The Charlie Brown place for meditation is actually called the Pitcher's Mount.
Secondly, the whole game is very childish. It reminded me of the Little Lulu comic books that I used to read as a child where the boys would have their own club, secret codes and were always competing for lame reasons. The baseball coaches use an intricate code of hand signs which make them look like chimps. They touch both nipples, pat their own heads, do the Martini man thing with the lips and the like so as to pass to their own players what the strategy is without giving it away to the other team. Likewise, the players sometimes all get together on the pitcher's mount to discuss the game with their hands covering their mouths. You never know when your adversary can read your lips.
Thirdly, American supporters are extremely strange. Apparently it's ok to arrive after the game starts and before it ends, like it was some porn movie continuous session where the plot doesn't matter much. The only difference being that the plot doesn't matter much because this is all an excuse to eat and drink like pigs. I should have suspected it when I mentioned I was going to a ball game at the AT&T stadium and J. promptly remembered how good the garlic fries were rather than say something about the team's latest deplorable performance.
$26 for two corn dogs, a beer and garlic fries. I expected it to come on a gold plate.
Also, every little break is taken over by the announcers to advertise for something and I still can't believe they haven't thought of putting some ads on the players uniforms.
More quirkiness: "The seventh-inning stretch is a tradition in baseball that takes place between the halves of the seventh inning of any game. Fans generally stand up and stretch out their legs and other muscles and sometimes walk around".
I was rooting for the home team (mainly because I love San Francisco and it seemed arrogant that the other team should be called Nationals just because they were out from Washington) and was appalled to see how the Giants fans started trotting out as soon as their team was being hopelessly beat. By the 8th inning you could actually hear the flock of anxious seagulls waiting for the game to end to attack the food leftovers.
The Portuguese: Hey! Why is everyone leaving!?
The American: There's no way the Giants can turn this game!
The Portuguese: What!? But you should stand by your team until the end! Where is the American optimism, the can-do attitude?
The American: No one likes a loser.
And it's true. The Giants suck. Go Giants!
**********
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.
$3.95 for a bag of peanuts, by the way.
*****
And, of course, now all that baseball metaphor used in Hollywood juvenile movies - which I believe is one of those cultural mysteries to any non-US national - makes much more sense.
* First base: Kissing, especially "French" kissing.
* Second base: Fondling or groping, especially of the breasts or genitals.
* Third base: oral sex, full nudity or a non-intercourse orgasm or dry humping (clothed genital to genital stimulation).
* Home run: Sexual intercourse.
Posted by claudia
Comments
Posted by malta at September 1, 2006 04:49 AM