Take Me Out to the Ball Game
That’s it; I’ve had a career epiphany. I’m going to be a professional baseball player. It looks pretty easy; there seems to be minimal exertion, which is important to me in any prospective sporting venture. I think even I could run flat out for fifteen metres or so. And hardly any of them hit the ball so I’d be fine when my time comes to bat. I know I don’t have an arm for throwing so I’d be useless as a distance fielder (is that what they’re called in baseball?) but otherwise I think it’s a decent plan. So, I’m going to look into the women’s leagues, do Geena Davis, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell still play on a team together…?
It is a lot of fun! I am an Englishwoman who has no real interest in sport and yet here I am at the AT&T ballpark watching the San Francisco Giants vs the New York Mets. I think I witnessed every American baseball stereotype there is; vendors throwing peanuts, large men spitting peanut shells onto an ever increasing pile between their feet; an entire stadium singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game; a near fight between a fan and the Giants mascot Lue Seal (a big seal with a big attitude); people diving for foul balls; old ladies yelling “you suck!” at disgruntled pitchers and plenty of corndogs. It was brilliant!
I settled in with a cold beer in what I’m assured is a rare afternoon of resplendent San Francisco sunshine and enjoyed a baffling afternoon of sport. I was under the assumption that I’d understand it all because it’s essentially a game of rounders, which is what the girls at school had to play while the boys played cricket; frankly rounders is far superior to cricket and probably most other sports. But what I was forgetting is that it’s been thirteen years since I played rounders and we frequently twisted the rules to suit the situation and our mood anyway; like the rule about dropping your bat before running, which was always an inconvenience for those girls who preferred to have something with which to hit any nearby fielders in the stomach, it’s very hard to catch a ball when you’re winded, I know. And I’ve never been great at understanding what makes a good pitch, which seems to be what baseball mostly consists of; at least this particular game had very little hitting and running going on. So I was generally quite lost.
It doesn’t really matter, it’s still fun because every other minute there’s music and chanting, interspersed with live video of people enjoying the weather on boats in the bay. The best image was of a cocky, shirtless plonker doing a dance on the slightly slanted roof of his boat and revelling in his glorious self for all of two seconds until he slipped, nearly fell in the water only to be saved by trusty windmill arms after which he very carefully and sheepishly climbed back down to safety. Anyway, despite the fact that the Giants are on a bad streak at the moment, much to the fans annoyance, whenever somebody did score a rounder, I mean point, run, thing, the crowd went crazy and it’s impossible not to get swept up in it all.
That’s the strange thing; I had just come to the end of an epic solo road trip where I’d marvelled at the vast and desolate beauty of Arches National Park, wondered at the eerie quiet during a night time drive along the Natchez Trace and stood at dusk, with not another human being in sight, gazing on the still and roaring red expanse of the Pinto Basin. Each a personal moment I’ll treasure forever but for someone who usually avoids crowds, seeks the quiet and is staggeringly awkward in most social situations it was a surprise that here at the AT&T ballpark, amongst hordes of screaming baseball fans, I felt the tranquillity of liberation. Together we laugh, chant, cheer, sing and groan. Collectively, with bated breath, we watch the next batsman take to the pitch. As one we inch forward when the bowler rears back and we each feel the crack of impact when the ball hits the bat and finally this one goes soaring through the warm air with every pair of eyes in the stadium fixed upon it. It’s there, as the ball hangs at the peak of its arc that I feel it. There’s lightness, a thrill, an unexpected ease and clarity in this smallest shared moment. I was happy. I’d found my freedom in the unity of 41,000 strangers.
About the author: In the spring and summer of 2013 Laura Jane Mellor, at the age of twenty-five and with not a scrap of knowledge or experience regarding independent travel, picked up a small camper-van in New York City and set off on a solo drive to San Francisco. She is currently working on a book about the trip.
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