{"id":7047,"date":"2021-05-27T06:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=7047"},"modified":"2021-05-27T06:31:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T13:31:02","slug":"baseball-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/baseball-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-7047\" data-postid=\"7047\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-7047 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n\n<p>I was riding my bike around the neighborhood stocking the street libraries with books and pamphlets. Nothing like working as an unofficial librarian at nine in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A high school baseball game was underway in a park stadium. The stadium was a stone&#8217;s throw away from a homeless encampment dotted with some of the most dilapidated RVs I&#8217;ve ever seen. They were never moving again. They looked like they&#8217;d gone through the Battle of Stalingrad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I stopped riding and took in a few pitches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I noticed a few fans sat in the stands behind home plate. A few cheers sounded in the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some other fans caught my eye. Some of the residents of the homeless encampment had set up lawn chairs just outside the home run fence, center field to be exact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I knew they were residents of the homeless encampment because I recognized them. They were some of the same people who occasionally play pickup basketball. I also knew because, well, there is now a familiarity with their appearance and demeanor. That&#8217;s not a judgment or slander. It has come from observation and interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not much really happened on the diamond as I watched. That&#8217;s why I never got into the game as a kid, although I played it for years. I do recall it being the best sport to participate in and daydream at the same time. Can&#8217;t do that in tennis or football or basketball. Okay, maybe long distance running allows for daydreaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I mounted my bicycle and rode away. A drizzle began to fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Baseball on a Saturday morning during a Pandemic. I dug that. Homeless people in lawn chairs watching the action. I really dug that. Maybe hot dogs and beer were showing up later. There was something uniquely American about this, but I was somewhat at a lost to define it.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was riding my bike around the neighborhood stocking the street libraries with books and pamphlets. Nothing like working as an unofficial librarian at nine in the morning. A high school baseball game was underway in a park stadium. The stadium was a stone&#8217;s throw away from a homeless encampment dotted with some of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7050,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047\/revisions\/7050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}