The Last Thing in Common?

We went to San Francisco yesterday, on a beautiful, clear, fresh, sunny day, to celebrate Suzie's and Will's birthdays, and to attend the "Giants Fan Fest" at AT&T Park.



(Pour mes amis étrangers, les Giants sont l'équipe de baseball de San Francisco.) We were able to walk on the field, go into the dugout (le endroit dans lequel l'équipe reste pendant le match), and watch a presentation by the Giants' TV announcers and coaches.



Afterwards, outside the stadium, while waiting for Will to purchase his latest Giant's paraphenelia, I walked down to the statute of Juan Marichel.  Juan Marichel was one of the greatest pitchers in Giants' history, a Hall of Famer noted for his exaggerated leg kick during his delivery, which the statute highlights.

While looking at the statute, an elderly African-American gentleman who was selling souvenirs struck up a conversation with me, which started with a discussion of Juan Marichel, and wound for the next five minutes through various baseball subjects such as pitch counts and the likely impact of the Giants' acquisition of Randy Johnson on Barry Zito's performance next year.  We agreed on some things, disagreed on other things, but always with a feeling of connection, of warmth almost, two strangers sharing a common love of baseball.

Driving home, I recognized again that baseball is one of the few things ... and perhaps the one last thing ... that various diverse groups of Americans share in common.  Our culture has been fractured, by a surfeit of diversity.  Instead of three TV networks, we now have 500 cable channels, each aimed at satisfying smaller and smaller groups.  Instead of a few national magazines that are widely read, we have hundreds of thousands of websites and tens of millions of blogs, which allow us to read only those ideas we want to read.  But baseball remains a common ground for us.  Baseball games remain one of the few places where Americans from all walks of life assemble to cheer (and groan) together.  And because the pace of the game is slow, it is one of the few places where Americans from all walks of life still talk to one another.

I would never have spoken with my friend the souvenir salesman in another context.  We spoke only because we shared the common culture of baseball.  It fear it may be one of the last things we all have in common.