Tonight we went to the Saltdogs game--Yun's first baseball game ever. And she also met Jake for the first time.
After about three minutes in the car she turns to Jake & tells him he & I are very different...he's quieter, and shy. This is of course ridiculous nonsense & to prove it Jake leans on the horn for a few blocks screaming stuff out the window. Yun instantly gets really embarassed, as she will be countless other times that night when we make her stand up and sing "take me out the the ballgame" or Jake does the chicken dance or we both leapfrog up a hill.
Dawn, Jake's girlfriend & the Saltdogs mascot, comes over in her giant dog suit at one point. Of course we wrestle around and Yun gets pictures with her etc. Jake & I, still, are sort of in denial that it's really Dawn in there, it just seems like a separate big fuzzy entity. I'm sure it's a lot weirder for him. Anyway.
As I'm trying to explain the rules to her I realize that baseball is a baroque sport...so many special rules and cases and weird terms for things. The "batter" walks up to "the plate" for his "at-bat." The "pitcher" throws the ball to him, if it's a good one it's called a "strike," otherwise it's a "ball" (what? the ball is sometimes a ball?). Three strikes and you're "out," four balls and you're "walked." I think if you aren't a native English speaker none of this is going to make any sense to you. I mean, try to imagine that you don't know any of the English words for all these things, or maybe that you know them but from other contexts, and are listening to me Alan Grow try to explain the game to you...
Posted by Alan at June 15, 2004 02:13 PM