Baseball, America, & Making Compromises

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

“We never do things I want to do,” Mike said the other day. He isn’t entirely wrong, but that also doesn’t make him right, primarily because he has never once said “I would like to do this that or the other thing, with you, right now.” I heard him loud and clear though, so fast forward a few days and I found myself in a sea of people crowding into Angels Stadium. In an effort to meet the man halfway, I cleared my Tuesday evening and agreed to sit in a sticky plastic chair with a few thousand other disgusting, hungry, sweating humans and watch grown men play catch.

I don’t watch sports. Not because I’m no fun, but because I’d rather do a thing than watch someone else do a thing. The game itself does not bore me, but I do detest the constant and asinine announcements, advertisements, schticky crowd promotions between innings, and general abundance of people. When we walked into the stadium, the game was already well underway. I spotted a large man standing near a concrete post eating nachos and holding a beer. He wore cargo short that may as well have been pants, and a crumpled white t-shirt beneath a tired Angels jersey. His eyes were vacant but almost deliriously happy. He looked as if he were eating without really realizing that he was eating, and I had an undeniable urge to hug him, you don’t have to…