When I was a kid, I remember listening to a lot of baseball on the radio.
I didn’t play baseball, but I knew the players’ names. I knew their strengths and weaknesses. I knew the rules of the game. I knew the teams’ records, I knew who had been traded for whom, I knew the rivalries.
I remember sitting next to the radio and listening to the announcer’s voice. I remember feeling like I was a part of the experience. As though my hopes and dreams mattered and might impact the outcome of the game.
And then the rehashing of the game with my father.
Celebration or defeat . . . it was a moment of connection.
As an adult, I don’t follow baseball.
Mark is not interested in baseball.
We have taken the girls to a couple of games over the years, and to say they were disinterested?
Would be a vast understatement.
Even so, I guess I somehow thought the girls knew the basic rules of baseball.
They do not.
Here they are playing baseball on the Wii this morning.
It doesn’t matter who is saying what, they are both equally confused . . .
“What do you mean, I am out again? That is completely unreasonable!”
“Maybe if you hold the bat over your head and swing down, it will work better.”
“You think? Let me try. AUGH! The ball is all unruly!”
“OK, wait . . . I think we can play against each other and then I will be throwing the ball to you. I’ll throw it nice.”
“Yeah, because this man with the balls is annoying me. He does not seem to care about my ball preferences.”
“There. Nice and gentle. Look! It says I got a ball! That’s good, right?”
“Pretty sure that means you get an extra turn. An extra ball.”
“Let me do that again, then. Yay! Another ball!”
“OK, but this way I don’t get to hit the baseball. This makes no sense.”
“Wait. It says I can do a screwball . . . hold on.”
“WHAT WAS THAT? This game is not like real life at all! Balls cannot do that in real life!”
“OK, now you are out. I don’t know why, but it says you are out.”
“Do you understand the whole out thing? I don’t get that at all.”
“Nope.”
“Mom! Come and watch! Our baseball skills have improved dramatically!”
Snort! I am giggling too hard to join them, “I am busy, ladies!”
“OK, let me see if I can throw a ball and hit you. That should be worth a point, right?”
“Seems like that makes sense. Try and hit me!”
“Wait! Why is your man walking to the first square? Is it possible that throwing balls is a bad thing?”
“Yay! I got a homerun! It should so be worth extra points if you hit it out of the park. Why is that only one point?”
“No, you got two points because that guy standing there got to run around. Which makes no sense because he didn’t do anything. Why should the lazy man get a point when the next man hits the home run?”
“I don’t know. I am winning!”
“Be quiet. Be a good sport or I will pound you.”
“Look at me! I am all swinging the bat crazy! I am all nimble batted!”
“You are distracting me! Hold still so I can aim!”
“OK, what’s a foul? I hit the ball. Why doesn’t the guy go to the square?”
“No clue. They don’t seem to like to play if you hit to the edges.”
“Why did it give me a strike? Also? That’s stupid that a strike in bowling is a good thing and a strike here is bad. A strike is bad, right?”
“I think so, yes. But why you get three of them? No clue.”
“OK, I will just hold the bat out and you try to hit it with the ball.”
“AUGH! What is a splitter? How is the ball doing that?”
“That’s so lame! If they are going to have the ball do magic stuff, there should be extra points and fairies and elves and stuff. They act like this is how the real game is played. No way the ball goes like that without magic.”
“Look at the directions.”
“Nah, we can figure it out. Just assume there are fairies you can’t see when you do the special ball throwing stuff.”
“I’ll just throw it regular from now on.”
“AUGH! That’s ridiculous! I should get points for hitting it right to one of the people! How is that an out? This game is ridiculous!”
“OK, so you won . . . you have two points and I have zero. This is the worst game ever.”
“Hey, look! It shows our skill levels!”
“Mother! You missed excellence! Kallan and I are well on our way to the Pro Level!”
Snort!
So much giggling.
Too funny! Both of my kids played t-ball/softball/baseball, so this wouldn’t happen, but it would on bowling. So much.
Aren’t kids great?
I never listened to baseball on the radio and find it tedious to watch on TV. Football is my TV sport of choice. Tennis to actually play (though not well). I’m more of a bookworm/nerd than athlete.
Maj and Kallan actually really enjoy bowling.
Both on the Wii and in real life.
They are not so much about team sports and cooperative ventures.
We have had the Wii baseball game for years. This is the first time I have seen them try to figure it out. So fucking funny.
Love my goofball daughters.
Of course, for there to be a goofball?
There would have to be fairies.
Snort!
“He does not seem to care about my ball preferences.”
Cracking. The. Fuck. UP.
I know!
So much giggling here.
So much giggling.
Yay! First!
I am not a fan of baseball, because it lacks magical fairies.
Hee hee!
The girls are certain they just need to somehow unlock the fairy feature.
Perhaps when they get to Pro Level.
Snort!
Am I first?
Not quite.
But I love you just as much, competitive one.
Just as much.
I was reading and cooking. So a little slow. Oh well. I tried lol!
Snicker.
Love you.
(Sometimes) I wish I had your kids! My son and my husband fight over the games in my house, and no one reads the directions! Thank you for always making me laugh (and sometimes cry).
Happy New Year to you and your family!
There is sometimes fighting.
Not all of the time.
But sometimes.
So much better when there is giggling . . . I love laughing!
And Happy New Year to you as well!
Screw batting averages, I’m impressed with their vocabulary!!
The girls both have huge vocabularies.
“Nimble” has been a popular word here lately, because they both got texting on their phones for Christmas.
And Mark told them they needed to work on being more “nimble-fingered.”
Snort!
So funny. My kids are sports ignorant too – they confuse which teams play what and how you score points and all that. I used to watch a lot of football and baseball but now I just don’t have the energy to care.
I would care if Mark cared.
I actually like watching sports.
But Mark doesn’t care at all . . . and I do not care enough to watch all by myself.
Who has the time?
You make time. Especially for baseball, since there’s no clock. Total escape from daily realities. BTW: as with a lot of people in these parts, a portion of me, in ash form, will eventually reside in Fenway Park. The owners know it, and tend to turn a blind eye (hey, how else to you keep the grass so green without some bone meal).
But if I took all of my extra time and devoted it to baseball?
Pretty All True would cease to exist.
So there is that.
I could spread the blog’s ashes on the field.
Snort!
All a matter of priorities. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, he placed baseball at the summit, above blogging. You can look it up.
Hmmm . . .
I remember studying Maslow and his hierarchy of needs.
I do not remember that baseball figured prominently.
Snort!
That is crazy. Our 3 yr old doesn’t totally get it, but both DH and I play softball so she’s seen the game enough to get the general idea. At my last game of the fall season, I was in right field (yes, I am THAT awesome), and I could hear her cheering like crazy from the bleachers. People were like, shut that kid UP! She’s going to kick butt at “Hey, batter” when we teach it to her though, because without even meaning to she was harassing the batters. “1..2..3.. aw MAN!!”
That is so awesome.
I do love a child who can talk some trash.
Happy sighs.
Baseball is so boring, but playing Wii baseball is much more fun!
The girls would probably love that new dancing game they have
It causes everyone in our house to laugh hysterically!
The girls got the Wii Dance game for Christmas!
They LOVE that game.
Love it.
Much hysterical giggling.
And Kallan kicks some serious ass at that game.
Yikes!
Okay I read too slow. Darn it.
This is like watching my younger brother (40+) & his oldest son (7?9?) play. Son is extremely bad sport but very coordinated. He win baseball but was not so successful at tennis. Son wins 2 games jumping around all happy. Dad wins one game. Son turns off game even though they were supposed to play best of 5 games. Lol. Was so funny.
I understand he is the same way when his younger brother wins.
I guess you could google the game rules, but since they are experts? I guess it’s not needed lol!
The girls are not big on reading the rules to games they don’t like.
Wii Dance? They know all the ins and outs of that game, and it has been in our house for just a week.
Baseball has been in our house for several years . . . they cannot be bothered to figure it out.
Boring.
Snort!
I bought the “just dance 2″ in the hopes I would actually exercise since I like to dance.
So far, it is still in the box.
Ah well. Someday. Glad to hear it’s fun. :)
It is way fun!
Take it out of the box!
Seriously . . . way fun.
This, this sums up baseball so perfectly: “Why should the lazy man get a point when the next man hits the home run?” Pure genius.
Maj and Kallan do not understand playing on a team.
At all.
Snort!
Haha magical fairies would make the game more interesting.
Wouldn’t they?
That would be awesome.
Oh, where to start?
Let’s start with you. I just have three words for you if you intend to be a serious writer: Doris Kearns Goodwin. She did a book about listening to Dodgers games with her father, but she didn’t let her skills lapse: she has a season ticket to the Red Sox and still scores the games. Basic lesson? Wanna win a Pulitzer? Watch baseball.
Beyond that is the issue of neglecting the girls’ education. Believe me, you wouldn’t be allowed this kind of lapse if you lived in New England. Even self-proclaimed atheists believe in New England’s civic religion (I kid you not), namely, the Red Sox (proof? The morning after the Old Towne Team won the World Series in 2004 for the first time in 86 years, graves of mothers and fathers all over the region were bedecked with Sox pennants & copies of the Boston Globe). And no, woman are note exempt: as zealous as the men (especially if they happen to be nuns!).
I could go on and on, but you’d better find surrogate parents who can stand in for you on this terrible lapse of parenting. Plus also? Jason Varitek has tight buns, according 2 one of my lady friends.
Sorrowfully yours…
I do not think the fact that I no longer follow baseball is all that is keeping me from a Pulitzer, silly you.
And I get the fervor that comes over a community united behind a sports team. I get it. It just does not play a role in my adult life.
So pffffftttttttt.
As for Jason Varitek’s tight buns?
What the fuck, babe?
How is that relevant?
You are a goofball.
Yes, I’m pretty sure it is failure to follow baseball that has cost you a Pulitzer. Sorry. No, I don’t see a way around that qualification: Updike, Cheever, I could go on and on.
Don’t tell me you didn’t quickly go to Google images to see if you could find a rear shot of Varitek. Plus also? Dustin Pedroia is a hero to “precision-sized people” everywhere.
Goofball? I didn’t get PT when ring finger on my left hand was broken, so it’s permanently bent a bit. I’m thinking about coming back as a lefty reliever to capitalize on that little freak of nature. Maybe I’ll call my out pitch “the goofball.” (as opposed, of course, to Bill “Spaceman” Lee’s and Rip Sewell’s Eephus pitch).
Gotta go: heading down to Curt Schilling Field @ Medfield High to practice my Goofball…..
I so did not Google any baseball player’s ass.
I am not so much about the ass . . . at least not in the male form.
Snort!
Later, silly you.
Go goofball it up.
I’ve never been a fan of baseball. Magical fairies would definitely have made a difference. We played a “form” of baseball when we were kids. We changed the rules when they got in the way.
Hmm, I could have used those magical fairies at bowling the other night.
Unless? They were there! Holding the damn pins up! Augh!
Those damn magical fairies are everywhere!
Thwarting the girls’ athletic prowess.
Snort!
My 3.5 yr old says “there is no I in team, but there is a ME!”
Think he will be any good at a team sport? Ask the girls! Hee hee
Snort!
He and the girls would make a good team.
Oh . . . wait.
They so would not.
Snort!