Baseball. =)

So I'm watching the Angels game and as I type this the Angels are down 6-4 in the 7th inning. The game is in Anaheim and so naturally, being down a few runs past the 6th inning brings out Rally Monkey. So they show all the fans dancing to "Jump Around", the official Rally Monkey jam.

And then back to the action. Now, as a casual fan, sitting at home, drinking a beer and half watching / half playing online Scrabble, hearing the Rally Monkey just means that the Angels are losing by less then 4 runs and it's sometime after the 6th inning and there's one out and someone is on at least 1st (there are RULES people!). Whatever right? But I looked up at the screen and I saw all the adults, swigging down the last of their beer so they can snag another before cutoff time, some Orange County housewives yapping on their cell-phones and looking up the aisles and then they showed this kid. This tan-faced, dirty looking boy, maybe 11 years old, hat on inside out and backwards, and he's praying. His night is made or broken by the outcome of this game. How friggin' exciting is THAT?!

This is why I love baseball. I love that for a lot of people, outside life ceases to matter. I love that that it's like that kick the can scene from Twilight Zone Movie were all of a sudden all the old are young again(and if you're dying to see 8 mins of it, you're welcome)

A ball field is a place where no matter how old you are, you can be that little dirty faced boy wearing the rally cap. And you can go with your dad or your grandpa or your brother or your son, your girlfriends, your husband, your mom (insert joke here) and everything is just smells of grass and hot dogs and onions and summer. And those are the best smells anyone could have in their nose.

You know what else I love about baseball? It's still the same as it ever was. You could totally be sitting next to a guy from the 30s in his tweed suit and hat, just the same as a teenager from the 50s with his rolled-up jeans and whiffle hair. Well, in my idealistic mind. But it's there. That magic and ideology, it does exist at the ballpark, like Christmas(!)

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come" –Terrence Mann - "Field of Dreams"

Oh yeah, and make sure you see this movie.