My first rain delay: Game 14 of 22+

Summary:
Score: Mariners 4 Detroit 3
Temperature: 72 o
Attendance: 23,583
Winner of the Dunkin' Donuts Race: Biggie Bagel

I'm a little behind in the blogs and I didn't think anyone would notice. You're a tough crowd sometimes. I've been writing this in spurts over the past few days. It's been a rather chilly week and there have been a few massive rainfalls. Two in particular were really bad and both
coincided with a Tigers game. I was only at one but Dale was at both. Last Tuesday's game was my very first rain delay; it may have been my fault for having said only a few hours earlier, gazing at the then perfectly blue sky, "it's amazing that I've never been rained on in all the games we've been to." Oops. The next day, Dale and Dave had a 3 hour rain delay. So, a few people have asked me what you do during a rain delay. You either leave or you wait. If you wait, you wait. Judging from the number of people falling up the stairs when the game
resumed, quite a few people drank many beers while they waited. You might, as I did, watch this amazing process wherein the grounds crew rolls a giant tarp over the infield in a well-choreographed series of movements. It's sort of like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade except with a giant silver tarp instead of the giant Snoopy. And, well, there's a lot less merriment and mirth. Ok, maybe it's nothing like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade but it still amused me. The other thing you can do-- as I did-- is stand there and think about the game and reflect upon why so many people are standing in the cold waiting for it to resume when there's not a patch of clear sky anywhere. On the screen, they played a long video where various celebrities, players, fans and historians talked about the game. Of particular interest to me were the people who talked about the parallels between baseball and everyday life. Some of these were somewhat cliched but others were incredibly moving. Someone-- whose name I copied down on my scorecard but is now washed away-- said that baseball's a sport where you can give it your all and still come up short. That's the heartbreaking thing about it and I've seen in the players' strides and in their determination. In my own small way, I've felt that too. In the past weeks, I've also been thinking about how, in previous summers, I took comfort in the fact that even though players strike out, mess up, screw up, wipe out, they still go to the plate and give it another stab, inning after inning, day after day. Baseball is a sport where you come back to the park and back to the plate again and again trying to get it right. There's a lot that can be learned from this game and there is, if you want it, a lot of inspiration on the field too. Perhaps I'm feeling so much affection for these players because they remind me of the need to step up to the plate day after day. It's unlikely you'll hit a homerun at every at bat but there's nothing stopping you from trying.