I went to a baseball game last night
I’m not much of a sports fan
But have always appreciated baseball
Slow, graceful, civilized
One thing at a time
One player at a time
Compared to the mad gang rush of basketball
The crushing heaps of football
Baseball is relatively kind
Plus, very few sounds can compare to
The satisfying thwack
Of leather ball hitting wooden bat
What better way to spend
One of the last warm summer nights
Than watching a minor league game
With my marvelous friends
Who all by the way know
Much more about baseball than me
All I know about baseball
I learned from folk singer Dan Bern
A baseball fan if there ever was one
He has a full double album of only baseball songs
And that ain’t even all of them
So I do know about Merkel’s boner
Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti
And I can almost rattle off
The year by year home run totals of
The great Barry Bonds
Because Dan wrote a song that lists the stats
Also I live in San Francisco
You can’t not be exposed to the Giants
I was in the city during
The 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series wins
And trust me, you couldn’t miss it
Anyway
That’s about all I know
I do understand the basics of the game
Runs and strikes and balls and so on
I’ve seen a half dozen games over my lifetime
And those 15+ viewings of Bull Durham
But compared to most Americans
I am more or less a baseball beginner
And as we know
Beginner’s luck is a real thing
Meaning if you never or only rarely done the Thing
When you do finally do the Thing
It will end up being atypical, anomalous
Unexpected in some way
The person who never gambles wins the jackpot
The *one* time they stick a dollar in
That sort of thing
In the spirit of beginner’s mind
This baseball game was exceptional
Weird in a fun and exciting way
Here are all the unusual things that happened
First off, it happened to be September 11
So before the anthem
A group of servicemen with flags came out
And we had a moment of silence
I am pro-moments of silence
Moments of silence give me hope
And they are especially moving with a crowd
It was not a very packed ballpark but still
It was a lot of us to be peacefully silent together
So that was special
Then the very first batter was up
I think there was a couple pitches
Before he hit a dinger
Yep, the first hit was a home run
Then the visiting team scored
Seven more runs in the first inning
My friends were all off getting beers and water
So I was left alone to wonder
Is this normal?
I seem to remember other games
It took a while to get to 8, if they even got there at all
Eventually more things happened
I got to see a rundown or
A pickle as it’s sometimes called
Which was very funny
I saw a double play, that was fun
After dark, a ball hit one of the stadium light poles
And bounced back into right field
Then during the seventh inning stretch
Our little group of friends got on the megatron!
Well, it’s minor league so
We were on the average-a-tron!
We were the last ones to pop up
And they stayed on us for a long time
Then there are these certain players
Who have been designated ahead of time
So as to possibly trigger extra rewards for the fans
One guy is the Double Double Batter
And if the Double Double Batter
At any time during the game
Hits a double
Then they give out free In’n’Out Double Doubles!
And then the Double Double Batter
DID hit a double!
It turned out that they did not pass out
Actual burgers to everyone
But reps came into the crowd with gift cards
And passed them out to the fans
To get one, you had to cheer really loud
Which we did
And got our free Double Double
My friend who lives local and goes to games all the time
Says it’s pretty uncommon occurrence
There is also a Beer Batter
And if he gets struck out at bat
Beers are half price for the next 15 minutes
And then that happened too!
Sadly it occurred after last call so no half price beers
But still impressively another uncommon occurrence
And then someone stole home!
Which I am told is extremely rare
Quora says that in 2018
Only 27 players tried stealing home but got caught
Only 15 players tried and succeeded
That’s only one *attempt* per 1035 innings!
Literally less than 1 in 1000
Even fewer make it
This guy made it
Everyone was very excited
Even me
Mostly because everyone else was very excited
I don’t know why there were so many oddities
I like to think my friends and I were in the flow
Having such a good time that
The Baseball Gods smiled upon us
I am grateful they chose to shower us with wow
There was one final non-standard event
But first you should know
The San Jose Giants churros are a real thing
My friend talks dreamily about them a lot
They are famous, these sugary crunchy cinnamon treats
In fact, the team’s logo is literally a churro guy
Holding what I think may be a churro bat
And for five games every season
The team turns into the “San Jose Churros”
As you might imagine
We anticipated dessert for a couple hours
Until, finally ready, we experienced the truly extraordinary:
The churro booth had closed down early
What? Oh no! No churros for us!
And it was all going so well
Still, rather a minor setback overall
I can’t complain
We were all so happy
No one really minded the absence of churros
Oh well, we said, who cares?
What a great game!
What a great great game!
And guess what?
During the last inning
We were given random free tickets
To come back for a playoff game
So we can probably get some churros
After all
I’m not much of a sports fan
But have always appreciated baseball
Slow, graceful, civilized
One thing at a time
One player at a time
Compared to the mad gang rush of basketball
The crushing heaps of football
Baseball is relatively kind
Plus, very few sounds can compare to
The satisfying thwack
Of leather ball hitting wooden bat
What better way to spend
One of the last warm summer nights
Than watching a minor league game
With my marvelous friends
Who all by the way know
Much more about baseball than me
All I know about baseball
I learned from folk singer Dan Bern
A baseball fan if there ever was one
He has a full double album of only baseball songs
And that ain’t even all of them
So I do know about Merkel’s boner
Pete Rose and Bart Giamatti
And I can almost rattle off
The year by year home run totals of
The great Barry Bonds
Because Dan wrote a song that lists the stats
Also I live in San Francisco
You can’t not be exposed to the Giants
I was in the city during
The 2010, 2012 and 2014 World Series wins
And trust me, you couldn’t miss it
Anyway
That’s about all I know
I do understand the basics of the game
Runs and strikes and balls and so on
I’ve seen a half dozen games over my lifetime
And those 15+ viewings of Bull Durham
But compared to most Americans
I am more or less a baseball beginner
And as we know
Beginner’s luck is a real thing
Meaning if you never or only rarely done the Thing
When you do finally do the Thing
It will end up being atypical, anomalous
Unexpected in some way
The person who never gambles wins the jackpot
The *one* time they stick a dollar in
That sort of thing
In the spirit of beginner’s mind
This baseball game was exceptional
Weird in a fun and exciting way
Here are all the unusual things that happened
First off, it happened to be September 11
So before the anthem
A group of servicemen with flags came out
And we had a moment of silence
I am pro-moments of silence
Moments of silence give me hope
And they are especially moving with a crowd
It was not a very packed ballpark but still
It was a lot of us to be peacefully silent together
So that was special
Then the very first batter was up
I think there was a couple pitches
Before he hit a dinger
Yep, the first hit was a home run
Then the visiting team scored
Seven more runs in the first inning
My friends were all off getting beers and water
So I was left alone to wonder
Is this normal?
I seem to remember other games
It took a while to get to 8, if they even got there at all
Eventually more things happened
I got to see a rundown or
A pickle as it’s sometimes called
Which was very funny
I saw a double play, that was fun
After dark, a ball hit one of the stadium light poles
And bounced back into right field
Then during the seventh inning stretch
Our little group of friends got on the megatron!
Well, it’s minor league so
We were on the average-a-tron!
We were the last ones to pop up
And they stayed on us for a long time
Then there are these certain players
Who have been designated ahead of time
So as to possibly trigger extra rewards for the fans
One guy is the Double Double Batter
And if the Double Double Batter
At any time during the game
Hits a double
Then they give out free In’n’Out Double Doubles!
And then the Double Double Batter
DID hit a double!
It turned out that they did not pass out
Actual burgers to everyone
But reps came into the crowd with gift cards
And passed them out to the fans
To get one, you had to cheer really loud
Which we did
And got our free Double Double
My friend who lives local and goes to games all the time
Says it’s pretty uncommon occurrence
There is also a Beer Batter
And if he gets struck out at bat
Beers are half price for the next 15 minutes
And then that happened too!
Sadly it occurred after last call so no half price beers
But still impressively another uncommon occurrence
And then someone stole home!
Which I am told is extremely rare
Quora says that in 2018
Only 27 players tried stealing home but got caught
Only 15 players tried and succeeded
That’s only one *attempt* per 1035 innings!
Literally less than 1 in 1000
Even fewer make it
This guy made it
Everyone was very excited
Even me
Mostly because everyone else was very excited
I don’t know why there were so many oddities
I like to think my friends and I were in the flow
Having such a good time that
The Baseball Gods smiled upon us
I am grateful they chose to shower us with wow
There was one final non-standard event
But first you should know
The San Jose Giants churros are a real thing
My friend talks dreamily about them a lot
They are famous, these sugary crunchy cinnamon treats
In fact, the team’s logo is literally a churro guy
Holding what I think may be a churro bat
And for five games every season
The team turns into the “San Jose Churros”
As you might imagine
We anticipated dessert for a couple hours
Until, finally ready, we experienced the truly extraordinary:
The churro booth had closed down early
What? Oh no! No churros for us!
And it was all going so well
Still, rather a minor setback overall
I can’t complain
We were all so happy
No one really minded the absence of churros
Oh well, we said, who cares?
What a great game!
What a great great game!
And guess what?
During the last inning
We were given random free tickets
To come back for a playoff game
So we can probably get some churros
After all
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