05/12/2022
Lynn Murphy Mark
Take me out to the ballgame…or just, take me out
Last night I was at a Cardinals baseball game. It was baseball heaven – great company with my friend Riff, wonderful seats, a hot dog, and a winning game. Busch Stadium is my second church. Riff and I were watching the game closely, as good fans do. However, in the row behind us sat a woman who never stopped talking. She had a high pitched, kind of whiney voice, which she used to discuss everything BUT baseball. Riff mouthed the words, “Do you think she’ll ever be quiet?”. No, no I don’t.
This situation reminded me of another baseball game. This one was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the minor league Albuquerque Isotopes play. My other baseball buddy, Rose, and I were in attendance. We took our seats – excellent ones just to the side of home plate. We settled in. We didn’t know that we were going to sit in front of a Chatty Cathy, but we soon found out. She talked non-stop about her life, punctuated by a very loud “Yaaay!!!” any time a player on either team did something good. She might as well have had a megaphone – that’s just how loud she was. So loud that we flinched each time she cheered.
Finally, I could take it no more. My conflict-avoidant self was outraged enough to turn around after a particularly loud outburst and give the talker a dirty look. She took it exactly the way I meant it and muttered, “I’m just trying to be supportive…”. I was pretty sure that my mean face had curbed her need to be heard throughout the stadium.
I was wrong. Apparently our episode had triggered a need for her to talk about her boyfriend, Stan. Stan was not in attendance, we found out, because Stan was languishing in jail. She talked about how the orange jumpsuit just didn’t look right on him, it just wasn’t the right color for him. She talked about prison attire, and brief visits that were not conjugal, and how she would be waiting for him when he had served his sentence.
By this time, Rose and I were curious. What had Stan done to warrant a trip to prison? We couldn’t exactly turn around and ask because I had established that we did not approve of her stadium behavior. But our lady simply talked about what it was like to visit him in prison. More non-stop conversation ensued about how they would be together again eventually.
Finally her friend got a word in and asked how much longer Stan would be in the Big House?
“Well,” she said, “he got two years. That seems like such a long time!” I immediately thought that Stan was probably enjoying the temporary silence of his jail cell. Her friend commented on how hard it must be to be in prison. We did not expect the next loudly proclaimed comment: “Maybe he should have thought of that before he tried to strangle me!”. Rose and I could not look at each other for fear of being very politically incorrect in that moment.
Believe me when I say that I am not advocating any kind of violence performed on another human being. I could, however, almost understand why Stan crossed the line of acceptable behavior. There’s a line from “My Fair Lady” that goes, “Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words….” I get that.