Holyagnostic has been a follower of the Texas Rangers baseball team since the franchise was moved to Texas from Washington in the early 70's. The admiration has been mostly from a distance. He attended a lot of games each season until he moved from Texas in 1975.
Season ticket buyers were sparse during the early years at old Turnpike Stadium. By picking the games that he wanted to see several weeks in advance, it was possible to get a seat in the front row at the end of the curve of the backstop on the third base side of the stands. The choice of that seat was made because it was just about perfect for watching the game without any obstructions.
The seat came with a premium. When a foul ball was hit on the ground back toward the backstop, it would bounce and roll slowly to where Holy was sitting. All he had to do was reach over and pick it up like the baseball was an apple that had just fallen from a nearby tree.
It was too good to last. The interest in the team grew and the season ticket sellers were able to move these choice seats to the corporate cats. And Holy moved across the country.
From a distance, contact with the team continued. The radio broadcasts of Ranger games were on one of those blowing and going 50,000 watt country stations, WBAP, out of Ft. Worth. After dark, even from 700 miles away if the atmospherics were just right, the play by play reached into Holy's life. It would be a struggle to listen at twilight, but when darkness fell, the signal with brief fades in and out was fairly strong on clear weather nights.
These days there is only an occasional game caught when they are on TV. Saturday night, July 24th was one of those times. The Major League Baseball Network carried the Rangers as their featured game. With a seven game lead against the recent winner of their division, the LA Angels, there was the hope that the Rangers would push it to eight before the night was over. Holy settled in for a baseball diversion. Instead, there was another lesson in why baseball is most like life.
The schooling began as the first pitch was thrown. It would have nothing to do with what was happening between the foul lines or even in the dugout. Holyagnostic's teachers were in the stands.
Four adults, two men and two women, trooped into seats on the third row behind home plate. They were always in view during that most popular of baseball TV shots--the one that makes you feel like you are watching from shallow left center field over the pitcher's right shoulder. As you would look into the stands from that vantage point, the two men were paired on the right with their female companions on the left.
The women immediately turned toward each other and began to talk. They were almost nose to nose in animated conversation. The woman on the right was a hand talker. Ms. left was fighting against the Texas still 94 degree early evening heat with a funeral parlor fan.
"They must be catching up on their day or week", Holy said to himself.
Three innings and one hour later they had not stopped. Popcorn and water intake occasionally interrupted the flow of their conversation. A sellout, standing room only crowd mattered not. The action on the field mattered not. They NEVER looked to see a single pitch, hit, or run. They were completely oblivious to their surroundings.
"How much did these front and center action seats cost?" Holy asked himself.
One of the really great things about the game of baseball is that it is a social game. The action is momentary with many a pause between pitches, innings, and occasional crotch scratching. In those spaces, extensive conversations can take place while the conversationalists are able to stay in the game. These two women were not interested in breaks in the action. They had things to say and absolutely nothing was going to interfere.
Where were they? At work? Attending to their children? Were they gossiping about a mutual acquaintance? What was it that took them away from the event that neither cared what was happening all around them? If only we could eavesdrop to know for sure.
Holy kept thinking that there would be a bathroom break. Nope. There were important communications that could not be bridged by any thing as unimportant as a pitch, an out, a hit, a spectacular catch or elimination need.
Tight 0-0 tie at the end of the fourth and the blabbering continued. 3-1 by the end of the 6th and still the word fuselage went on and on. The Angels broke away to a five run lead that was reduced to four at the end of seven. There was no reduction in the animated women. They still faced each other instead of the field. When a foul ball rocketed toward them, everyone else in the section around them would flinch as the ball hit the protective fence. No response except more talking, fanning, and drinking of bottled water from Ms. Right and Left.
The game was a relatively short one, only a few minutes above three hours. The four left in the middle of the eighth, probably to beat the crowd to the freeway. In the nearly three hours that they occupied some of the most expensive seats in the stadium, Holy NEVER saw even a glance to the field.
At church the next day, or at work on Monday, if someone were to ask these two what they did Saturday night, what would they say?
"We went to the Texas Rangers game," they might respond.
Did they really?
We began this journey saying that there were life lessons in this story. Holy has found several, but he is going to let you decide if there are any here for you.
Well?
