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BASEBALL AND CANADIANS
DON'T ALWAYS MIX |
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Most people don't realize how difficult it is to be married
to a Canadian, or for a Canadian to be married to me. Adapting to the
culture of their newfound land can be uncomfortable and alienating.
So it has been for my poor wife, who happens to be Canadian.
When she first came to this country, many years ago, she
pretended to fit right in. She ate American food, learned to dance
American dances, and eventually stopped ending each sentence with
"Eh?"
But it was all a ruse. Born Canadian, she would always be a
Canadian. Every time I thought she had assimilated into our culture,
something would happen that would prove me wrong.
Take baseball, for instance, which began another season last
week and prompted these memories. Nothing could be more American
than baseball. So after my wife passed her citizenship test and was sworn
in as an American citizen, I decided to take her to her first baseball
game.
This was 19 years ago, when Pac Bell Park (now Oracle Park),
home of the San Francisco Giants, first opened. It was an exhibition game
against the New York Yankees. You can't get any more American than that.
In the second or third inning, a Yankee hit a ball over the
right field bleachers into the waters of McCovey Cove, a long home run
that would have made Barry Bonds proud.
My wife was impressed. She watched as the Yankee rounded the
bases, and then turned to me.
"He hit that ball so far, does he get to go around more
than once?"
I kid you not. I patiently explained that she had just
uttered the most ridiculous comment ever heard within an American baseball
stadium, and that she should immediately return her citizenship papers.
She refused, and since it was an exhibition game, I agreed to her demands
that we leave early.
That was it for baseball, until last season. She had
continued her American education over the years, learning the names of
Presidents, state capitols, and various American bar drinks. I thought it
was time to give baseball another try.
We were in San Diego and the Giants, my home team, were in
town. I paid $90 each for some of the best seats in the stadium, three
rows from the field, right behind the visiting dugout. I wanted to be
close to the field and give my wife every opportunity to become totally
immersed in the beauty of the game.
I not only got her involved, I almost got her killed.
It's too bad. She was actually starting to appreciate the
game, once I explained the difference between a ball and a strike. She
began enthusiastically rooting for strikes, since she quickly figured the
game would be over much faster if the pitcher threw strikes.
She had some difficulty understanding that a foul ball was a
strike, except it couldn't be the third strike (unless it was a fouled
bunt), but I decided to leave that explanation for another day. She was so
happy that the first three innings went by without a runner reaching base
(which she realized would slow things down) that I didn't want to upset
her with details.
I was proud of her. She wasn't whining too much, and she looked
like she was ready to last at least through the 7th inning. That's when
the foul ball almost killed her.
It came at us at about 130 mph, and I'm not exaggerating. I'd
never seen a ball hit that hard. A line shot, head high, with no time for
me to gallantly throw myself in front of my wife and take the proverbial
bullet.
Fortunately, she was sitting on my right, and the missile
passed by my ducking head on the left. A woman in the row behind us, who
was talking to her friend and paying no attention to the game (she was
probably Canadian), took the shot on the side of her face, a glancing blow
that only caused minor damage. An inch to the left and it would have
hit her square in the eye.
Suddenly, my wife had a new appreciation for baseball. She watched
every pitch, every swing, with an intensity I didn't know she possessed.
She was finally a full-fledged American. She never knew baseball
could be so exciting. That's why she lasted through the fifth inning
before she dragged me out of there.
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