A baseball game. (Image for representation)
Credit: iStock Photo
I had gone for a visit to Washington DC when my friend made me an offer I could not refuse: “Would you like to see a baseball game?” I agreed readily. I knew very little about this game except from what I had seen in some movies. The Baltimore Orioles who were leading the league were playing Santiago Padres. It was with a great deal of excitement that we headed towards Camden Yards, the stadium in Baltimore. There was a festive atmosphere all around.
People in the colours of their teams, black /orange for the Orioles and Brown/Gold for the Padres were heading towards the stadium. Whole families seemed to be there-mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, all having the time of their life.
The stadium was packed. And blaring on the very loud loudspeakers was a song which everybody seemed to know and were singing along. My friend helpfully explained that this was a popular song — ‘Take me out to the ballgame, take me out with the crowd, buy me some peanuts and crackerjack, let me root, root, root for the home team, if they don’t win it’s a shame’!’ So yes, we bought peanuts (sold with the shell, which I was seeing after a long time) and crackerjacks, which
are nothing but caramel coated popcorn.
The game started after a powerful rendition of the national anthem. There was a toss to decide who will bat first. They were shouts of encouragement, roars of approval and groans of agony. The home team was doing badly-but the game itself seemed incidental.
Everybody was having a good time -and there was also lots of easy humoured bantering. To my cricket on steroid driven IPL eyes, the game was boring. Hardly anybody seemed to be able to hit the ball. An entire innings consisting of three players coming, waiving the baseball bat, missing the ball all three times, or three strikes in baseball terminology and walking back, out, with nary a remorse (Siraj batting at number 9 walks back after getting out at zero showing more emotion!) There was one miserly four known as a home run in
the entire game.
The Padres won by a score of 9-2. I was told this was a good score-I would have agreed if this was a football or hockey game. Nine-two huh! I came back knowing about baseball vocabulary — pitcher, and base and strikes, and tagging. But thank you. Take me any day to the Chinnaswamy Stadium for an adrenalin-pumped, passion filled RCB match. And yes, I am waiting and willing to take my friend when he visits Bengaluru next.