When you're up close at a baseball game,

you can see the distrust and loathing cross the players' mostly stoic faces as they come within earshot of the fans. You can see what the players and coaches do in the dugout when they think no one is watching: razzing opposing players and coaches, ogling women in the stands, imitating teammates' batting stances. And spitting -- lots of spitting.

You can see how the fans howl insults and pleas for attention in the same breath. "You suck! Throw me a ball!"

You can see how big and how specialized a professional athlete is. Every muscle, every piece of equipment, every tic, is, like every inch of the field, carefully considered, created and calibrated for the prevailing conditions.

You can see how the modern ballpark is built to distract us from the fact that we're not watching the game on TV. The frequent musical interludes, the cavorting mascots, the inane between-inning contests, the ADD-inducing scoreboard are all meant to function like commercials in real time, so that you're tempted to spend money on the products that cross your field of vision, and so that you don't have to concentrate on anything for an extended period.

However, with all that said: sitting in really good seats, with Gabe and two of his friends, and seeing a well-played ballgame, was a real MasterCard moment. The kids were so stunned by these seats they started waving hello to the ballplayers. "Hey, Mr. Young! Hello! Ozzie! Hey Ozzie: Hi!!!" The speed of the pitches, and the batted balls, made them yelp with terror and excitement.

And two majestic home runs by the hometown boys -- two rainbow arcs down the left-field line -- made them howl in glee, and high-five the guys behind them, who by this time were so drunk that the boys instantly became their new best friends.

Gabe got thrown a t-shirt by some nubile, dancing representative of Chevrolet. His buddy Jeremy, who'd never gotten a major-league ball in his life, got a ball tossed to him by one of the Minnesota Twins' coaches.

Last night, the game was replayed on a local cable channel. We watched it again, because, when the camera on the third-base line focused on a left-handed hitter, Gabe and his friends were clearly visible, two rows above the Twins' dugout. He loved watching himself on TV, having a great time with his friends, in the same picture frame as a major-league ballplayer (mercifully, I was just out of camera range most of the time). He got to watch a great ballgame twice in one day, he got a t-shirt from a cute girl, and he got to see himself on TV.

I hate to say it but:

Priceless.

--T.A.

Comments

[karen]

#1- You have to be the best Dad ever.

... and b) No matter how bad something seems(as you very aptly point out)($$$$= baseball)you get to the &>(uh, that's a heart) of the matter- the lesson- the positive beneath/beyond the negative; with humour.

Thank you for sharing.

[Steve Yastrow]

Baseball players are lucky that they can get away with their dis-engaged, aloof, distant treatment of fans and still get paid a gazillion $$$$.

I wrote the following in We, describing the difference between being engaged and just putting on an experience:

"When you engage your customer, she does more than experience you and your product. She stands in relation to you. When the interaction is only one of experience, there may be entertainment, but there is also remoteness. I enjoy my experience at a professional baseball game, but there is an insuperable distance between the players on the field and me. I am an “it” to them, and they are “its” to me, even though I know their stats and have read about their favorite foods and activities off the field. They entertain me, but they have no idea I am there. They would play no differently if I weren’t there. We are not engaged."

A friend of mine who is a rabid Cubs fan took issue with me for writing this. I told him of a time a number of years ago, when the Cubs were totally sucking wind in mid-April, when 9-year old Noah and I waited after the game by the players' parking lot for autographs (after an abysmal loss), and each player drove off without stopping. What business can get away with that?