Initial Baseball
Tiger fever is in the air. Maybe not so much in Jerusalem, but I was invited to watch the game at around 1AM, and people I call for work in detroit mention it, so I am feeling it a bit. For about a minute I thought it was cool that my used-to-be home team was going all the way. Then I realized I dont care. I was trying to think if I ever cared, or why I dont care when everyone else I know does, and I think it all goes back to initial baseball...
I dont know if initial baseball is a real thing, or someone in my shul made it up, but it went like this. Two people played, one a "batter" and one a "pitcher". The pitcher would say the initials of the player he's thinking of, and the batter had to guess who it was. If he guessed it right away, it was a home run. If he need one hint (which team?) it was a triple, two hints a double three a single, four, you're out. Generally, brother Shu played it with a guy who wore brown loafers(I used to think it was weird he would wear brown shoes on shabbat when I was wearing a suit and black dress shoes-wow, things have certainly chanegd since then!). I used to try and join in, but in order to play you actually had to know players names, team, position, and answer to whatever other question they asked. I could usually only come up with C.F., Cecil Fielder, who was the most famous player at the time, so not a very good player for me to "pitch" with. I dont know if I disliked baseball before then, but I do remember studying the backs of cards so I could play, and hating it. I've passed the hating stage, now I'm at total indifference. Maybe if I knew more people on St Louis, I would at least gain bragging rights, but I don't.
I dont know if initial baseball is a real thing, or someone in my shul made it up, but it went like this. Two people played, one a "batter" and one a "pitcher". The pitcher would say the initials of the player he's thinking of, and the batter had to guess who it was. If he guessed it right away, it was a home run. If he need one hint (which team?) it was a triple, two hints a double three a single, four, you're out. Generally, brother Shu played it with a guy who wore brown loafers(I used to think it was weird he would wear brown shoes on shabbat when I was wearing a suit and black dress shoes-wow, things have certainly chanegd since then!). I used to try and join in, but in order to play you actually had to know players names, team, position, and answer to whatever other question they asked. I could usually only come up with C.F., Cecil Fielder, who was the most famous player at the time, so not a very good player for me to "pitch" with. I dont know if I disliked baseball before then, but I do remember studying the backs of cards so I could play, and hating it. I've passed the hating stage, now I'm at total indifference. Maybe if I knew more people on St Louis, I would at least gain bragging rights, but I don't.
posted by stillruleall at 9:47 PM
1 Comments:
O.K. first of all a little weird that you remember the color shoes that my arch rival wore.
I think you hated baseball just to be different. We played a year of Little League on the Astro's together, and then you decided that you hated sports, and preferred to sit in bed reading books.
I did love playing Initial baseball, it realyy passed the time in shul. SOmetimes when I seethe man in Brown Loaferswe still throw out initials to each others. Although I'm not as dominant as I once was, probably because I don't collect baseball cards anymore.
Post a Comment
<< Home