Marking Time

There are two sure ways to measure your age, having a birthday and going to a ballgame.  I’m doing one today and did the other on Sunday.

I am now officially old enough to be irritated by people who can’t sit in their seats; the call of beer and food is too great, after which it’s the call of the john.  And here my father taught me you go to a ballgame to watch, not pig out.

I’m way past the point of being irritated by the scoreboard and music.  What players walk up to I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to.  Something also needs to be done about the young people on the field, not the drunks but the twenty-somethings working for the Sox.

I don’t need to see anyone waving a White Sox flag to cue my excitement at being there; ditto fighting for tee-shirts tossed or shot my way.  I don’t care who wins whatever race they have on the scoreboard, and I don’t care who wins the Sox-announcers’ mascot race.

I don’t particularly care who throws out the first pitch, and I definitely don’t care who wins what between innings.  The next time I buy a ticket for “split the pot” will be the first.

What I do care about is the home team winning.  Playing fundamentally sound baseball would be nice, too.  Only now I’m too old to hold my breath.  Six years of losing baseball and counting.  Put that on a birthday cake instead of candles.