Take me out to the ballgame

Today’s musings come not from the usual E3 massive, but from beautiful, sunny San Francisco. So part of the current epic holiday has been an introduction to the game of baseball; thrown in at the deep end watching two Boston Red Sox vs. San Francisco Giants games at A&T Park. Plus a host of other Red Sox games on the TV.

It’s a fun game and once you get into it I can see the attraction (although I was disappointed with the distinct lack of nacho hats, as the Simpsons would have me believe existed).

Yesterday’s game also brought the highlight of almost catching a foul ball. I say almost because I was actually ducking trying to avoid getting hit in the head Fever Pitch style. The ball bounced out of a guy’s hand behind me, and ended up in my bag. He then proceeded to launch himself over the seats, landing on me and grabbed the ball out of my bag. What he didn’t realise is that we were a pretty large group.

When I say pretty large, I’m not just talking about the number of us, but in fact the composition of the party included a high proportion of men who you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley (pussycats the lot of them).

As his eyes travelled down the row, you could actually see the moment that he wished he hadn’t been quite so eager to claim the ball for himself. What he opened himself up to was a stream of constant banter for the rest of the game, which whilst was good-natured, I’m not entirely convinced he was aware of that!

So to sum up my baseball experience thus far; hitting anything is unusual, getting to first base even more so. There are adverts everywhere, especially when you watch on TV. It’s a long game with exciting moments; try not to be in the bathroom when these happen. And if you happen to have the opportunity to catch a foul ball, be careful who you’re squashing, unless you want 2 hours of teasing and banter. It was all good natured I promise…