Our Night at the World Series

  So, really, given my overall status, why am I saving money?

  So, since it took the Rangers 38 years to get to a World Series, and I did not go last year, why am I not going this year?

   So, we went. I took my three sons and my son-in-law. We had a perfect day. We slid into a close parking lot without difficulty, took out a tent and grill, tail-gated in beautiful weather and went into the stadium in time to watch the ground crew chalk the field. We made friends with our seat neighbors, even the Cardinal fans.

   I bought the tickets. My guys parked us, fed us and drove us. If you go to my Rick Davis facebook page and go to the Profiles page, you see a photo of us taken by a kind neighbor. From left to right, the picture is my youngest son, Jordan, my oldest son, Jeremy, me, my middle son, Jonathan and my son-in-law, Larry. 

   We all got white towels to wave. We sat in a wispy cloud kind of night, with 51,000 other screaming maniacs and yelled our heads off for the Rangers. Jeremy bought me a baseball, Jordan got me a souvenir program an inch thick. We ate peanuts. When we ran out the nice lady in front of us gave us some more. I had two sips of Jeremy's Dr. Pepper and one of Jordan's Coca Cola. Ordinarily, I disapprove of hard drink, but it was a World Series, after all, and who knows if we will pass this way again, so I consumed three short sips of sugared soft drinks with the boys.

   We sang "The Star Spangled Banner" before the game, "God Bless, America" in the seventh inning and then "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I was in fine voice.

   We danced to the "Cotton Eyed Joe" and "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." 

   We stayed until the last out. We stayed for awhile after that, too. We walked out with about 49,000 happy people and the Cardinal fans, as well. We found our truck and got out of the parking lot easily, happy in the knowledge our fellows, The Force of That Which is Good and Right, won the day. And, we rejoiced in being together, high in the Texas sky,  in a kind of dream, secure in our familial love, unafraid of the vast throng.

   For a few hours one night, there was no Long Recession, no cynical leadership, no rapacious elitist class, no war, no aging, the complete absence of pain. We sat in companionable silence, or joked with people around us. We waved our white Ranger towels and screamed "Napoli, Napoli, Napoli," which is the name of the Ranger's sturdy catcher. The stadium organ accompanied us as we shouted, "Let's go, Rangers" and then clapped six times in discordant unison, together in will and zeal, if musically inept.

   There were the usual shouted exhortations to the millionaires playing ball far below us. In addition to the accustomed yells, I added, "Smite the Philistine, hip and thigh," when Albert Pujols advanced to the bat, he being the Goliath of the Evil Cardinals. It was a biblical allusion, well received by the crowd around us, and more appropriate because we attended the Sunday night contest.

   We will always have this memory, all five of us, of a cool Sunday night in Arlington, Texas, at a World Series game, father and four sons, enraptured  with our love of The American Game. Baseball is not the only American Game but it is the only one that matters, finally, because it is baseball, where touching three bases, on a path, safely, finally leads Home. 

 

Comments

[Robert]

I saw that pic, but as good as it was, this short story is at least as good a picture as that!

[biff]

Funny but I was going to contact you because as the camera moved through the crowd it happened upon a guy who really looked like you. Maybe it was the tenth of a second it passed and someone who vaguely looked like you or maybe it was you. Funny happenstance.....biff

[Robert]

My 'overall status' is they are all too short in the back and thus VERY uncomfortable to wear...

[Rick Davis]

too funny