Going to the
Giants Game
with My Heckling Brother
OR HOW THE
RIGHT LITTLE GIRL
SHUT MY BROTHER UP
By John Graham
As seen
in Pax Americana, Issue No. 1, October 6, 2006
www.paxjournal.com
HOW DO I SHUT
my brother up?
Every time I go to the ball game with my brother Michael,
I have to sit with the biggest heckler in the stands. Its hard
for me. One of the reasons I like baseball is the lack of braggadocio
on the part of the players. You dont get the kind of chest thumping
and strutting you see in basketball or football. Its what ex-major
league pitcher Bill Spaceman Lee calls premature congratulation.
You just dont get that in baseball.
Call me naïve, but to me baseball is still the gentlemens
sport. Even when they empty the dugouts or the pitcher throws at the
batters head, it still seems like some kind of slow, low down
subtle act of chivalry. Fans conduct leisurely conversations as the
game unfolds. Dare I use the term, but with all the sun and green grass,
it is a pastoral setting, as if Adam and Eve hit the ball around the
Garden of Eden before the big scandal that ruined them.
I do realize that heckling is a tradition. Traditional interjections
like Hey, batter, batter, batterswing! are part of
fan rhetoric (imagine that on the golf course). We want a pitcher,
not a belly itcher has got to be one of the great rhyming couplets
in the language. But carrying on and taunting the players from my little
bit of real estate in the stands just isnt my style. Therefore,
when I arrived at the Giants versus Dodgers game one afternoonmy
brother is a committed Dodgers fan; I am a Giants fanI
was not looking forward to the slings and arrows he would be directing
at Barry Bonds.
Barry is at 713one homerun away from tying Babe Ruth.
But hes having a bit of trouble getting there. His knees hurt.
Pressure is mounting. There is the constant babble about the steroids.
Some fans have taken to carrying placards marked with asterisks. Some
dress as syringes, although its my understanding that he wasnt
a needle user if the steroids talk is even true. Proof of their bandwagon
lack of imagination is that none of them have been able to create a
costume that looks like the supposed ointment he is said to have used.
The Clear is like sun block, Its there, but its
notwhich only adds to the illusion. The illusion is one of the
driving forces of the scandal. Some fans have decided that something
is there, while others have decided something is not.
My brother is a resourceful man. The week before the game he called
to say that he had tickets right behind home plate. Great, I said, come
on down. I told him I would meet him at the Willie Mays statue before
the game (Mr. Mays was celebrating his 75th birthday that day).
As my brother had two hours of driving to reach the ballpark,
the time of our meeting was naturally inexact so I wandered around looking
at the boats and kayaks. There were saxophone players, orange and black
people looking at blue and white people. Entire families negotiated
the price of tickets with scalpers. The great thing about the stadiumwhatever
theyre calling it these daysis that you dont really
need a way in to have a game experience. You can just show up and walk
around.
I found myself at the right field fence where fans are encouraged
to look through the grating and watch the game. When I arrived, there
was a horde of young children dressed in red shirts lining up to take
the field. Their parents were standing to the back, on their tip-toes
trying to watch their offspring as the teachers herded the youngsters
on to the grass. The red shirts were emblazoned with their school name.
It dawned on me that the children were going to sing the national anthem.
All year the Giants have had school groups sing the anthem before each
gameso much for the Huey Lewis and Grateful Dead vocal renditions
of years past.
As the kids were introduced and began singing, my brother
called to say he was at the Mays statue. I hustled over, met up
with him and together we headed into the stadium.
So, I asked him. I suppose youre
going to mouth off the whole game, eh?
Only when Barry is at bat, he said.
We entered the field level tier of the stadium. Any good
ticket that is behind home plate should be at field level.
The usher rechecked the tix and pointed us onward, and onward we went,
further and further down the steps.
Row triple-A, I said to him. Ive never seen
that.
My brother smiled. Wow, these are good seats.
After descending every single step, we found ourselves right at the
edge of the field, looking up at home plate, next to the Dodgers
on-deck circle. Dirt was practically falling on our laps.
Good job, I said.
Yep.
From the seats, you could hear the on-deck players swing
in rhythm with the pitches. The sound of the doughnut coming off of
the bat was louder than the crowd. Baby-faced Jose Cruz, Jr.an
ex-Giantlooked more baby-faced than ever, even with three days
growth. Nomar Garciaparra looked eerily straight into my eyes every
time he took a practice swing, stopping to cadence his hands through
a series of tics that included, among other things, smelling his gloves
and doing the sign of the cross. And then there was the Beast, Jeff
Kent, right there. I could see his small teeth and even smaller mustache
he seems to have derived from some Jeff Stryker movie. Smoke came from
his nostrils.
My brother started into his routine with a little vocal
support for the Dodgers.
Oh, youre a dangerous boy, I said to him.
There you go, Dodgers. There you go!
I noticed that sitting next to us was one of the little
kids from the national anthem choir, in his red school shirt, sitting
with his mom.
Hey, you did a great job today, I said to him.
Tell the man `Thank you, his mother said.
He managed a shy nod to me. I looked at his mother. That
was quite an effort to get them all together out there.
Tell me about it, she said. There were
a hundred and fifty kids.
Well, they did a great job.
An inning passed and my brother shouted out the odd slogan
here or there, but had yet to break into the full on Barry-bashing that
I had experienced with him in the past.
The young boy and his mother were visited by a girl about
the boys age. They greeted one another. From the looks of it,
she had come over to sit with them. I took another look at the kid and
the girl. Barry came to the on-deck circle.
Bar-ryyyyyy! my brother growled.
I heard the boy call the girl by name. Her name sounded
familiar. She said his name. It sounded familiar as well. Barry looked
over at the kids and smiled.
Bar-ryyyyyy! my brother said again.
Hi, Daddy! the girl waved to Barry.
I sat for a moment as the scene clicked. Yikes. The girl
was Barry Bonds daughter. The boy was ex-Giants manager
Dusty Bakers son, the same kid that J.T. Snow had shucked from
near catastrophe at home plate during the 2002 World Series. And the
woman was likely Dusty Bakers wife.
I tugged on my brothers shirt as Barry approached
the plate.
Hey, Barry! my brother let out.
Hey, Mike! I said to my brother.
Hey, Barry! my brother shouted again.
Hey, Mike! I grabbed his collar.
Hey, Barry! again.
Miiike!
What? he looked at me.
Above the din of the crowd going away at opposite ends of
Bonds reputation, I delicately whispered into my brothers
ear. Were sitting next to Barry Bonds daughter
He looked.
And I think the kid is Dusty Bakers son.
He turned. The woman smiled at my brother. My brother smiled
and nodded back. Barry stood at the plate and took a pitch. Ball. My
brother sat back in his seat.
These are great seats, I said.
Yeah they are.
Between pitches, the announcer told the crowd that the days
attendance was 42,88542,884 of whom could not have shut my brother
up. Looking over at the little girl sitting next him as she watched
her daddy play baseball, my brother warmed himself in the sun, quietly
looking at each of the players as they came and went at the plate. I
shouted out words of encouragement to each of the Giants. He shouted
out words of encouragement to each of the Dodgers.
These are great seats, he said.
Yeah they are, I replied, looking at the little
girl that shut my brother up.
John
Graham
San Francisco, 2006
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