LA Story
A little more than six months ago, I found myself in Los Angeles, driving up to one of the most mystical places in American sports.
When I arrived at Chavez Ravine, my first instinct was to get as close to the field as I could. It was a typical Los Angeles day -- the sun was shining brightly, but evening was calling, and the shadows had engulfed all but parts of the outfield.
My friend, who lived in LA, didn't have as much interest in baseball as me. So as I rambled on about Jack Clark's homer in the 1985 NLCS, and how it had happened right where my finger was pointing, he just nodded.
Maybe I should have taken the hint, but I pressed on. It was here, I passionatly observed, that Sandy Koufax pitched. It was here where Kirk Gibson wrote the final scene to one of the game's best dramas in 1988. And it was here that Vin Scully, one of my broadcasting idols, had spent the last five decades.
If God is a baseball fan, I murmured, I bet he spends his summers here.
Finally, my friend spoke up.
"Zach," he said, "I don't care."
It hit me then. It reminded me of eighth grade, when my science teacher and I engaged in a discussion about astronomers.
"Isn't it amazing," I asked the kind instructor, "that some men spent their whole lives on a subject, while most of the world could care less?"
Keep in mind I asked this in front of the whole class. A lesser, less caring teacher would have brushed me off, or been insulted by my ignorance.
Instead, he talked to me about mental diversity, about how important it is that men and women exist to study these things. Even if we are not interested in them.
My friend from LA is a great man who has helped me and been loyal to me for years. But he's not a baseball fanatic. Where I see a shrine to history and American culture, he sees a diamond and seats.
I imagined then that the look in my eyes in Dodger Stadium was the same that was in his when we reached the ocean in San Diego, and then celebrated his birthday in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
To each their own.
I didn't care about astronomy. Galileo Galilei probably doesn't care about baseball.