America’s Pastime: The First 5 Innings

First Inning “You can’t go to a baseball game without peanuts,” my dad said as he took a huge scoop of the salted variety from a bin in the local grocery store. At five-years-old, I had never been to a baseball game before and the whole day had been about him telling me what has to happen in order to go to a baseball game. It seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to see a man hit a ball. After getting back from the grocery store, my father shared another bit of wisdom, “Make sure you don’t forget your mitt, you don’t want to miss any of the foul balls that get hit to you.” I listened excitedly, although I didn’t really understand. I didn’t know what a foul ball was, and I thought that I was going to watch the game, not be involved in it. Just as we were about to walk out of the door he said, “Wait, we can’t forget our hats.” At that moment, he grabbed an old hat with a mesh backing that had a...