BASEBALL AND MATH
Cindy Maddera
I generally do not give Michael Father’s Day gifts. I also do not push the Cabbage to do this. I might ask them what they plan to do for their Dad, but I do not drag them to the store to purchase a last minute “World’s Best Dad” mug. I respect that Michael is a father, but he’s not the father of any of my children. Father’s Day is not my responsibility. Those responsibility belong to the two people who decided to have the Cabbage. Though occasionally, I have ended up getting Michael a gift because I just saw something that I knew he would like and it just so happens to be near Father’s Day. Like one year, I got Michael a pastrami sandwich kit from Katz’s Deli. There was nothing in this kit that I could eat except the pickles. So it is not like he could really share, but I didn’t get it for him because I wanted the pastrami sandwich. I knew that Katz’s Deli was the best pastrami he’d ever tasted in his life and that being able to eat that sandwich again would bring him joy.
One of the few times I was in my car last month, I heard an advertisement about a lecture at the Linda Hall Library about the analytics of baseball. There would be a panel discussion of Big Data and statistics and how all of this changed the game of baseball. I think. I don’t really know. I signed us up for the free event. When the time came, we rode our bikes to Tiki Taco for dinner and then over to the library. I had never been inside Linda Hall Library. It’s a place I have wanted to visit for some time and I was not disappointed. It’s filled with old books and art deco light fixtures. It is the library you want to live inside. Michael and I got to the event early so I could wander around, but also do some people watching. It was kind of a predicable audience. Lots of older, white-haired gentlemen wearing ‘dress’ shorts and white socks pulled up their calves. One guy was wearing a trash panda t-shirt that Michael coveted. He looked it up and showed it to me. I told him he should order that for himself for Father’s Day because I never prompt the Cabbage to do anything. He made a noise of approval and I looked over just in time to see him write a gift note to himself. “To the best dad in the whole world.” We laughed and laughed about it.
Then we settled in for a talk about baseball and statistics and it was the most boring thing I’ve every had to sit through. And I’m a scientist! I had no idea what anyone was talking about or who anyone was talking about. This is what I heard: “Blah blah blah. Baseball. Pitcher. Blah blah War. Blah blah blah. That guy on third should have run to home. Blah blah blah.” All of this is fine. I am not a sportsball kind of person and I knew going in that I would not be the slightest bit interested in what was being said. I knew this because this was a Katz’s Deli pastrami sandwich kind of gift. While I was I hearing all the blah blah blah, I was paying attention to the joy that was happening on Michael’s face. When the moderator pointed out someone from the Royals in the audience, Michael whispered “I thought I recognized that guy!”. When the moderator introduced the first person for the panel discussion, some guy who built some baseball statics website, Michael shimmied in his seat and then turned to me to whisper “That’s a good website!” He laughed at the occasional baseball related joke and nodded his head in agreement to something a panelist said. He was in to it.
It was adorable.
When I told Michael and I had gotten tickets to this, he said “You’re going to be so bored.” I think he was thrown off by me getting tickets to something that would only interest him. I waived away his concerns about my interest level by saying that I was sure there would be some interesting aspects. I’m not going to lie, I found the panel discussion to be mind numbingly boring, but the people watching was great fun. The best part of all was seeing how much Michael enjoyed the program. That’s worth sitting through a panel discussion of “blah blah blah, baseball”.
