Play Ball

We went to a San Jose Giants (not San Francisco Giants) baseball game last week. It's our second time to Municipal Stadium as a family, in the past nine years we've lived here. We have also been to one SF Giants game (as a completely spontaneous change of plans when we were planning to visit Alcatraz one time). So we're not exactly huge baseball fans, though we're open.

This time we went with at least 4 other families from our homeschool support group. Naturally, our kids wanted to sit with the other kids. Since we arrived later, in order to do this Jason and Emily had to squish in amongst the other families. David and I got to sit at the end by ourselves, next to another couple whose kids were also in the middle. From time to time we leaned over to check what our progeny were doing, whether they were behaving appropriately, enjoying themselves, not too cold, hungry, or otherwise needy. But mostly we sat close to each other and felt like we were alone at the game! We discussed the plays with the adults next to us and between innings smiled to watch people trying to extinguish the headlights of an old van by throwing baseballs at them (this is a sanctioned activity, with a vehicle driven onto the edge of the field...).

Before the game we listened to a flute solo of the national anthem (quite nice), and wondered whether it was kosher to sing along. Yes? No? Hmmm. I tried to listen and sing quietly at the same time.

At some point I looked around myself and really felt like I was in a dream. Me, in America, at a baseball game, surrounded by hot dogs and nachos with mysterious cheesy goo and the U.S. national anthem. In my childhood this was movie lore. It didn't happen in real life. Now I see people really do this. A whole lot of them. Including us.