Frozen on the edge of your seat
"I love baseball," he said, wistful and sweet, like the last line of a movie
The entirety of the intended opening weekend for the Vancouver Canadians was rained out. This could have been predicted by anyone familiar with Vancouver weather: scheduling the beginning of the season for the second weekend of April is just asking for such things to happen. It was okay, though, because I wouldn’t have been able to go anyway. My own first day of the season was always going to be a Wednesday, and it turned out to be a beautiful one, the only such day of the week: absolutely clear skies, the sun shining all day, just beginning to fade beyond the trees as we settled into our nicer-than-usual seats in the section just to the left-field side of home plate. It was the first game of the season, after all, and the temperatures were supposed to dip near freezing by the time the game would end. A day like this one warranted being out of the bleachers.
I am used to the Canadians as a team of hazy summer days, the stadium packed to the wooden rafters with people. April is different. We found ourselves among a sparse but jovial crowd, well-prepared with blankets and leather gloves, and for the first time ever, there was no line at all to get my fries. A large contingent of the attendees were from the Royal Bank of Canada, who do charity sponsorships for all the Wednesday games, so the stands looked rather bluer than they normally do. I stretched my legs, drank my coffee too fast. The microphone for the national anthem had weird problems. For the little kid who was supposed to say PLAY BALL!, it didn’t work at all, and her quiet voice disappeared into the stadium noise. Then the sun disappeared, and the game began.
I’d heard that the previous night’s game had been a fun one, a low-scoring affair that had ended on a thrilling walk-off wild pitch, a win for the Canadians. It didn’t take long to become clear that this game was going to be more frustrating than thrilling. The Canadians were late on seemingly every fastball; they failed to capitalize on walks. Meanwhile, the Dust Devils were ahead in seemingly every count. For a few innings, they somehow failed to score, until, all of a sudden, they did, piling on and on with two out, every plate appearance running six, seven, eight pitches. The Canadians came up in the bottom of the inning, at long last, and promptly continued their previous patterns of failure. We were still paying attention, sort of, but our hands were becoming numb, and I, with stiff fingers, was googling the number of unassisted triple plays in the history of the major leagues, because the confusingly-worded trivia question for the night was “What is the rarest play in MLB history?” and I figured that was what they were going for. I imagined, gratefully, what this game would have felt like without the pitch clock.
By the time it was 7-0, the crowd had thinned severely. But the two kids sitting beside us were sticking it out, and unlike many of their adult compatriots, who had turned to heckling the umpire or otherwise apathetic silence, they remained in good spirits. With the lack of competition, they both managed to snag prizes thrown into the stands (a gym bag that looked like a baseball, an RBC-branded stuffed lion). They discussed their sick collection of bobbleheads (a Vlad Jr. and an Ohtani — you have to see it some time). The sad display of baseball and the freezing temperatures didn’t seem to have dampened their enjoyment at all. During the long middle of the game, one of the kids leaned forward. “I love baseball,” he said, wistful and sweet, like the last line of a movie. “It’s just so fun.”
When the Canadians finally got their first hit in the bottom of the eighth, the scattered hundred or so fans cheered as if the stands were packed. The baserunner was promptly driven in with a double down the right-field line. That run would remain their only one of the night. The final score was 9-1. We stayed right to the end, to the last swing and miss, and when I stood up, I realized just how cold I was. I had forgotten. The horrible, wonderful game had let me forget.
When I got back home, I ran my red, swollen hands under warm water. I wished I was back out in the cold.