Drabble by Kevin Fagan for May 20, 2023

Take me out to the ballgame, because I need a nap.

I don’t miss going to ball games anymore.

I remember during my visits to Fenway Park, I wanted to leave early both times, but couldn’t, cuz my whole school was at the game, and had come by bus.

My father in a nutshell. Don’t think I ever saw a complete game.

My brother parks in a public lot and takes public transportation to the stadium. He doesn’t worry about the traffic that way and stays till the end.

Baseball is a game of strategy, of course most people will think that’s boring. But since the owners have made ballparks the place to be, not very many actual baseball fans are there.

So far, traffic is undefeated.

If they wanted to speed the game up, make the game 7 innings and no more stupid new rules.

The new rules have reduced the length of baseball games, which has been hard on LA Dodger fans. Through long habit, they arrive in the second inning because they were delayed by traffic, and then they left in the seventh inning to beat traffic on the way home. After the change, they now arrive in the third inning and have to leave in the fifth inning to beat traffic.

The new rules are wonderful but they haven’t produced a new game. Rather they took us back to baseball in the days before guys started wearing batting gloves, body armor, etc. and repeatedly adjusted after every pitch. Games back in the day were just a little over two hours regularly

I thought leaving early was what the 7th inning stretch was for.

Yet another reason not to go to the game.

I much prefer watching the game at a bar. The beer and snacks are cheaper, you can interact with friends and other customers, the line to the restroom is shorter, you can watch others games during the commercials, you don’t have battle traffic getting out of the stadium, etc, etc.

If they want to speed up the game, instead of changing the rules, just tell the players that the faster the game os over the higher their pay per hour averages out to.

Since the average athlete these days can barely count past 10 with his shoes on, they won’t realize that their salary remains the same regardless

If you’re going to leave so early, what’s the purpose in going at all. My dad usually liked to wait 10-20 minutes after the game and avoid being one of the sheep. We got out just a tiny bit later than we would have by joining the hordes.

Then there’s golf, …