Our family was the fortunate recipients of some baseball tickets given to us by a very kind lady who was not going to be able to use her season tickets for a recent home stretch of games for the Ogden Raptors. The Raptors are a minor league team. We had two tickets each night for three nights in a row. So my wife, Jenny, graciously told me that it would be a great opportunity for daddy-daughter dates with our three girls. Something tells me that if we had 200 free tickets, Jenny would have graciously offered all 200 to other people. She's just that type of a person, sacrificing so some unfortunate homeless person can catch a ball game, so she doesn't have to.
I was excited for it. I hadn't been to a professional ball game for quite awhile. What we experienced was well worth it. I was hoping to gather in all of the experience by eating peanuts and hot dogs, so I stopped off at a teller machine to empty out my bank account because I knew what type of costs that I was in for. Unfortunately, the teller machine was down. I only had $7 dollars in my pocket. I told Megan that if she could hold out that we would buy food after the game. We were able to scrape enough money together to buy two small hotdogs. The next two nights, I came well prepared to buy all the sugar and fat loaded food that I could get my hands on.
The experience was really entertaining, not only did the Raptors win all three games, but all of the side stuff that goes on in these games really was fun...strange, but fun. You see, baseball is a little bit slower paced that some other professional sports that constantly run up and down a court or field. So this leaves plenty of time for the crowd to get caught up in some wacky stuff. It really is sort of a religious experience in a way, in that the game probably started out in some sort of pure form where the spectators just sat quietly, being proper and not embarrassing themselves in anyway. Over time things have morphed or changed to meet the inner needs of the spectator just like most religions do today to meet the needs of the penitent soul. I mean, at first glance it is as wacky and ritualistic as any fanatic denomination is to the outside observer.
I found myself saying that baseball fans are really weird. They have some sort of catechanistic litany that they unfailingly have to follow. For instance, when the announcer announces the other team before the game starts, everyone has to yell out, "who?!!", after the announcement of each team member. The announcer then repeats the name and then everyone yells, "oh!!!". They do this for every single player announced. Once when the announcer started and after he read the first name and he felt that he didn't get a loud enough mocking response, he started over again so all of the cat callers could get a fair shake at him.
Then, a lady comes down to the front behind the back stop as if to offer an invocations and yells, "What time is it?!!!", which everyone responds, "baseball time, ugh!!!!". This was like her calling in the congregation. Everyone knew her and she did this everygame. There were numerous people in the crowd who had their own individual cheer, that they utterred at specific times in the game, and the crowd was ready to follow along with them. There are die-hard regulars at these games. I felt like a outside pastor listening to the weekly confessions of those who just needed to let everything out.
Then there is the 'organ'. I don't know if there is someone in a small little room playing this thing or if it is totally computerized. This noise, at first, totally got on my nerves. Who could think that this was a pleasant sound. And I know what they are trying to do. It's just like Pavlov and his dogs; once you hear the noise you must respond no matter how hard you try not to. People instantly begin clapping or chanting rediculous phrases like, "Charge!!!", whenever it played. I mean, what were we charging? I would think to my self that these people were mindless sheep, don't they realize that they are being manipulated. Boy, talk about weirdos.
Then there is the things that people wear. All the strange and unnatural things that they do to their ball caps, the monestanastic chanting by the food vendors, the seventh inning rest hymn, etc. Even the umpires had their own quirky styles.
At the first game I was thinking that this experience was just plain weird. At the second game, I came to expect and tolerated the weirdness. By the third game, I was wearing my rally cap, and belting out, "buy me some peanuts and kracker jack...", and once I found myself clapping to the organ.
Has anyone else had a born again baseball experience?
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