
Given that I grew up in the Bay Area in the early 60s, and we lived about 12 feet from Candlestick Park, where Willie Mays and the Alous were then in their prime, I should have been much younger than 35 when I had my first live MLB experience. But the biodad was no sportsfan.
And so it was that when Frank, a Berkeley gradualschool colleague, escorted me into the Oakland Coliseum one warm, bright spring day in the mid-80s, and I saw the field spread out before me, all emerald green, baselines gleaming white in the sun, my first words were, "WOW! Real grass!"
Pathetic, huh? I was expecting astroturf. I forget why.
Frank, a Red Sox fan from birth, was nice about my obvious retardation; having recently learned that he had nothing much to fear from people who didn't go to Harvard, he'd loosened up a lot and was able to explain--without being condescending hardly at all--that we were about to watch Tom Seaver face Roger Clemens, and why that was a big deal. We had excellent seats on the third-base line, practically on the field. If I were a "real" baseball fan, according to some people's definition, I would remember not only who won that game but all the box scores.
But that's not what I remember. That's not how I love baseball. How happy I was to soak up Frank's explanations of the geometry of what was going on in front of us--live! and so close!--the different kinds of pitches, their speeds, the fact that hitting a fastball is the single hardest task in sports, and we got to eat hot dogs and drink beer and sit in the sun while watching big, handsome experts do these things--the novelty and pleasure of these sensations, that's what I remember. Who forgets falling in love? That's what I was doing.
We went to more games, and I went to games with other people, and I learned more, especially from my former student, Matthew, who had pitched so hard in high school that he'd broken his arm, no snapping, just pulled his humerus in half, right in the middle, and was sentenced not to throw so much as a spitwad until he was 25 lest he grow up lopsided. (So of course he took up soccer and is now perfectly proportioned 6'4", looks exactly like Anthony Perkins.)
Matthew did the best color. We'd sit up high, right behind home plate, and he'd stream-explain what we were seeing: "OK now, we have a lefthanded pitcher and a righthanded powerhitter, so watch the outfield--see? they're moving way back and shifting over to left field. . . who's the first baseman looking at? Right, the second baseman, because when he goes like this [swipes left hand on pant leg], then . . . see? He did it! and now the first baseman will . . . That was a fielder's choice. Huh? OK, fielder's choice is when . . . and . . . got that? Good. OK now that was a pitchout, that's when . . . ." Matthew taught me wayyyy more baseball than I taught him English.
He taught me, and others have taught me, but I never remember, from one season to the next, what a pitchout is, or a fielder's choice. Or I sorta do, but not really. I love having it all explained to me all over again, every year. Last season, Pica taught me how to keep score, which makes me feel a lot more engaged in the game--or explains to me why I'm engaged (or bored, but rarely), why the drama grips me so tightly, why every pitching duel has the potential to become what Randy Johnson made of it the other night, why I love the Red Sox--because the ride is so bumpy, the suspense so great, the heartbreak so excruciating when, at the last moment, they blow it, as they always do, in some stupid, Bill Buckner way, whether it's an individual game or the pennant. Last year, Pica and I agreed that we were never going to get that far into it ever again, no matter what, because it was just too hard on us, in such real ways, when the Yankees did it to the Sox yet once again.
But we both know that, given the chance to get that far into it again, we will.