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May 21, 2008 |
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Play ball! The Happy Valley baseball season is about to reach its zenith. JUCO looms ahead, a time when folks, both baseball fanatics and those who watch once a year for the Monday night fire works, fill the Lincoln Park stands to witness young men from across our land involved in America’s pastime. Should you be unfamiliar with how baseball works yet eager to join in the annual JUCO carnival may I be the first to say, “Welcome”. And, as a newbie, be aware there does indeed exist a set of rules governing baseball spectating. True they’re unwritten, but there’s a code of conduct to which one should adhere. This was brought home last year at the exciting deep into the fall Padres/ Rockies game. It was the night our purple clad favorites, amidst the friendly confines of Coors field, came from behind in the fourteenth inning to defeat the San Diegans and earned a spot in the play-offs that eventually led to the World Series. The middle daughter and her husband were lucky enough to score tickets. They sat next to a pleasant lady who admitted her attendance at professional sporting events was limited to an occasional Bronco game. “But,” she exclaimed, “This is really exciting. Why you can even see what the players look like!” So far, so good. Until she queried, “How come the referees aren’t wearing striped shirts?” Questions like that, along with “tell me again who’s playing?” “What’s an inning?” and “I know the difference between a strike and a ball but why are there three of one and four of the other?” are not something one blurts out in the middle of a baseball crowd. So let’s explain just a few of the mores and folkways of America’s pastime those new to the game find puzzling. Be aware, uniformed athletes who spit and scratch have played the game for almost a century and a half. Avoid pointing out this extra curricular activity by exclaiming, “How disgusting.” Deal with it. Seated in the stands you can chat up a neighbor or sip a soft drink between pitches. The players are not given these options. They’re left, so to speak, to their own devices. This means yelling to no one in particular, “Hum babe”, spitting, scratching and re-adjusting body parts. Sometimes during a longer lull, as when the pitcher repeatedly shakes off the catcher’s sign, you may see an idle infielder engage in all, sequentially, re-adjusting, scratching “Hum babe” and spitting. Pitchers do not throw fast, it’s “cheese”, “heat” or “seeds”. A hitter who swings and misses at a fastball up in the strike zone causes the comment, “He got ‘em with high cheese.” A pitcher does not throw slowly, he “paints the corners” with “junk”. And pitchers no longer throw from the mound but “toe the rubber” or “are on the bump.” Batters who hammer fastballs are “sitting dead red” and a ball hit out of the park is never a home run but described as “stroking a tater” “see ya”, “going yard” or “dialing 9” (in a hotel room one dials 9 for long distance.) And baseball’s ultimate truth, any spectator philosophizing, “Well it’s only a game.” is never rooting for the winning team. Have fun at JUCO! |