The game of baseball is, without doubt, the national pastime of the Americans. Today was the 3rd game we have attended after the Yankees and Red Sox. It’s a strange sport where not much actually happens, played by chunky men you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. It reminds me of our test matches except baseball is over and done within 3 hours, not 5 days.
There is a lot of strategy that goes into it and it is a statistician’s utopia. There are more acronyms on the scoreboard alone than many of the companies I’ve worked for over the years. There are times when you drift off in your own thoughts, come back to reality 10 mins later and not much has changed. That’s where the cricket test match similarity lies. On the other hand, there are certain traditions at baseball in the USA that are adhered to religiously that only vary slightly by ball-park.
The 7th innings stretch usually garners some activity in the crowd with the traditional “Take me out to the ballpark” and at some stage, there is a war veteran who is dragged out onto the field to a standing ovation. The national anthem at the start of the game, of course, is a given and God Bless America later on. In the stunning Fenway Park in Boston, they have a tradition of playing Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline after the 8th inning and the crowd goes ape. There wasn’t anything that stood out today but what all clubs do is ensure every second of downtime during the game is filled with activities on the big screen. Different games that actually don’t involve prizes, just crowd involvement. AFL clubs do much the same now. My beloved Saints do a good one that I haven’t seen anywhere else. It’s a “stare –off” at 3/4 time where 3 kids get a chance to stare down a camera that is projected onto the big screen. They have to stare for as long as they can without blinking and it’s very funny. Longest stare gets some Saints gear. We saw a kid go over a minute one night. He looked possessed…in fact, come to think of it his name was Damian.
We saw the Seattle Mariners take on the Oakland Athletics today. Both teams at the bottom of the Western Conference. I’m not sure how these guys have any genuine motivation outside of their pay packets to keep competing knowing they have no hope of playoff action. They play 160 games a year and this series against Oakland has gone on for the past 5 days. There are some terrific baseball films made over the years that depict what it’s like to be inside the cut and thrust of a baseball team. Lynda and I love “Bull Durham” about a minor league club in North Carolina. It’s the performance of Tim Robbins in particular as the wayward pitcher Eddie Calvin “Nuke” Laloosh. His nemesis is the veteran catcher Crash Davis, played by Kevin Costner who is given the unenviable task of mentoring Laloosh in order for him to go to the “show”, namely the major league. Lynda and I find ourselves quoting this movie a lot at a baseball game. “Boys got a million dollar arm and a 10c head” and “He’s shakin’ me off. That meat is shakin’ me off” to name a couple.
Safeco Field is a beautiful stadium and sits next to a concert hall and then comes the Century Link Stadium, home of NFL giants the Seattle Seahawks. Both stadiums are approximately 50,000 seaters and there was 33,000 there today. Public transport again lets you down and you have to walk over a km through skid row to get there. The walk back was even sadder as the streets and parks had become like the walking dead.
One of the nice things about Safeco Field and Fenway Park is that they have pensioners working as guides all over the stadium. They love a chat and their positivity is contagious. The food covered all the major food groups if that includes fat and sugar. There was even a fried Twinky! A Twinky is a chocolate roll if you haven’t seen one before. Anyway, we got another bus home after more waiting. I spoke to someone at the Mayor’s office yesterday who happens to know Bill Gates. Gates, through his advisor, rang me this morning and it appears Gates wants me to chair a symposium on public transport in Seattle. I told him I’m off to West Glacier Tuesday morning but if there is internet there I will Skype in. The only proviso is that we have a rigorous agenda with mandated outcomes or I will be just wasting my time. First things first and that’s the keynote address at Boeing tonight. Apparently, ticket sales are accelerating. We are at 8 people currently and they are just fans of my Lou Reed shirt apparently. Nonetheless should be a cracking night.
