play ball!

Enzo, an enthusiastic Chilean

Thanks to Mr. Yin's athletic prowess (and that of his orientation team's) they all won tickets to go see a Diamondbacks game. And I got to trudge along.

As it turns out, most of the American students dropped out at the last minute, but all of the international students and a handful of American sports fans (and their trusty sidekicks) put away their books for a night to catch a game. Game two of the 2010 season, D-Backs vs. the Padres.

We carpooled to the light rail and publicly transported ourselves to Chase Field. (Which, coincidentally, is right next door to US Airways Stadium where the Suns play.) The ball park is huge, and fancy complete with retractable roof and tons of seats (1/3 of which were empty).

Our free tickets seated us in the nosebleeds, but provided us with an awesome view of the game. None of the international students had any idea about the rules of baseball, but were an enthusiastic bunch, cheering at anything and keeping the wave alive. Mr. Yin and I spent a good part of the game explaining the rules to guy from India. He is a huge (please do not underestimate this adjective) cricket fan. I think I did Jaime and Jay proud, drawing on the similarities (which I think are limited to stick and ball) and explaining the differences. I think I may have learned as much about cricket as he did about baseball.

My favorite? He kept calling the catcher "the wicket keeper". As in "Jason Varitek is my favorite wicket keeper". Awesome.

All in all it was a fun game because the people were fun and the view was great. But it made me miss Fenway. Of course I wore my Boston hat.

Gotta represent.

Oh, and after a mini-rally in the 7th (or was it the 6th?) Arizona lost 3-6. Good thing there are 162 games in a season.