"O-Oh Say Can You See?"

Baseball games are like snowflakes.  Or like fingerprints.  They’re like two things. 

Every one of them is different.

That’s why I go to watch them, and occasionally attend, even in Los Angeles, where it takes two hours to get there, and forever exiting the parking lot, fighting menacing gridlock, where at least half the drivers are drunk. 

Here’s why I do that.

I have seen hundreds – nay, thousands – of ballgames, on TV and sometimes in person.  And I can tell you from my experience – no two of them are exactly the same.

“Right.  Every game’s boring in its own way.”

Ha!

As I ignoringly proceed.

Okay.

I concede that not every game can be as memorable as the one I saw on June 21, 1964, where, while visiting New York with a friend, we watched the (New York) Mets play the (Philadelphia) Phillies, and Phillies’ pitcher, Jim Bunning threw a “Perfect Game.”  

Twenty-seven Mets up.  Twenty-seen Mets down.

“No hits?  How interesting is that?”

The  Phillies scored six runs, taking care of the action.

“So the game was half boring.”

“Ha”, again, and don’t push it.  Of course, not every game is an historic occasion.  (Bunning’s perfecto was the first in the regular season since 1922.)  Sometimes, it’s a few standout maneuvers that stick with you.  Sometimes, maybe just one.

A perfectly executed “Squeeze Play.”  A leaping catch at the wall.  A slick shortstop, ranging deep in the “hole”, nailing the runner at first by an eyelash.  A game-ending strikeout, the sacks loaded with baserunners.  A leaping catch at the wall.  A hustling, “head first” slide, the runner lacerating his chin.

That’s baseball.

You never know what will happen.

Take, for example, the Dodgers-Cubs game we were invited to one recent Saturday night.

The touted “evening’s excitement” was that Yu Darvish would be pitching for the Cubs.  This was significant, as it was Darvish’s first return to Dodger Stadium since, playing for the Dodgers, he single-handedly blew the 2017 World Series, starting two games where he could not get out of the second inning, his team by then so far behind, they were unable to catch up.

(After the season, Darvish was given a $126 million contract by the Cubs.  If I knew you could get that much for failing, I’d have tried baseball myself.)

Local media wondered, when, taking the mound, whether the Dodgers’ fans boo Darvish.  Or, the more cynically accurate, would they ever stop booing him?

There’s your “Memorable Moment”, right there.  “Big doin’s”, before the game even begins. 

Unfortunately, we missed it.  Hideous traffic caused us to arrive after the second inning was over.  (Our GPS said, “You should have left earlier.”)  They had booed him, all right.  But we were still in the car.

What we did see was Yu Darvish, pitching skillfully for seven innings, the Dodgers “faithful”, watching in ironic chagrin, grumbling,

“Sure.  Now!”

But that’s not what I’ll recall about that ballgame.

I shall recall, instead, a personal record.  Which was, memorably, this.

During the time I spent ensconced in my seat, no fewer than six people sat directly in front of me, beating my previous record by four.

I do not know what happened.  People sat down.  Then other people showed up, and the first people got up and the other people sat down.  Then new people arrived.  Then the original people came back. 

There was more.  But I am already retroactively infuriated.

Here’s the thing.

Depending on the size of the “Seat Filler” in front of me, sometimes, I could see things, and sometimes I couldn’t.

The Dodgers scored their lone run on a home run by Alex Verdugo.  I totally missed it, the seat’s “Occupant of the Moment” being very tall and inordinately wide.  The hometown fans were on their feet.

They saw the home run. 

I saw the guy in front of me’s big back!

The “Floating Occupancy” ensued throughout the game.  And at every “switch”, I’m mumbling fervently, “Short Guy!”  “Short guy!”  “Short guy!”  “Short guy!”  Or – not to be sexist, I just wanted to see – “Woman!  Woman!  Woman!  Woman!”  My karmic reward, at one point? 

An extremely tall woman, totally blocking my view.

Top of ninth, I finally catch a break.

Answering my prayers, a young child is occupying the seat.

Giving me a clear view of a Cubs hit batman, followed by the next hitter, smashing a two-run home run, to win the game.

That, I saw perfectly.

But what I’ll remember forever is six shuttling people, serially sitting in front of me.

Reiterating “You never know what you’ll see when at a ballgame.”

Sometimes, it’s on the field.

Sometimes, it’s not.