Baseball in October

We're in Phoenix this weekend and last night Sam and I attended Game 1 of the National League Championship Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies. I love the atmosphere at play-off games--the stadium is electric with enthusiasm and energy. But given that I don't have a strong passion for either team, I found myself drawn to random observations throughout the game. Here are a few:

1. There is something very cathartic and unifying about booing the umpire. After a highly questionable call at a crucial time, the crowd raised their collective voices in a prolonged booing of the 2nd base umpire. (They also threw stuff on the field, causing the game to be temporarily suspended.) It was fun to join in on the booing, although I have heard it done with more enthusiasm and creativity in Philadelphia and New York, where after centuries of practice rudeness has been elevated to an art form. For a moment I felt badly for the umpire, but quickly recovered my senses and rejoined the chorus. I wonder why no one ever boos at home, like when your teenager doesn't do chores, or your husband leaves the toilet paper roll empty.

2. The lower section baseline rows in modern stadiums are designed so that if the person in front of you is exactly the same height you will be able to see the field, from the foul line and above, which seems a rather idealistic design with little margin for random distribution of individual verticality. From the top of the head of the person in front, another eight inches will block the view from your foul line to the outfield fence--basically the entire field. If the person in front of you is wearing a baseball cap, that will add two inches, or 25% of the field. If the person is 6'4" or higher and wearing a cap, and you are, say, ME, then you will not see anything. I looked up and down the stands and observed how many people were craning their necks to see the game. I had the passing thought that outlawing baseball caps at games would increase the viewable field coverage substantially for all people on the lower levels, but quickly realized that would be un-American.

3. There is a line in God Bless America that I had never really thought about and struck me as kind of silly:
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.
I suppose Irving Berlin was struggling to find a word that rhymes with home. "Roam" had already been popularized in Home on the Range. "Comb" was hard to fit in. "Gnome" would be a stretch, and so on. So he settled on "oceans, white with foam," and I'm sure his wife said the song would never take, and if he had any idea that it would be sung at thousands of sporting events for many decades he would have spent more time on it and come up with something better. I bet he never even considered "loam" or "chrome." Maybe we should update the song for today's pro sports scene. Can anyone say "Dome"?