Baseball

This week I decided to mix up my visit with Nasser a bit. When we met up at our usual time in union grounds I asked him how his day was going along with all the normal formalities. For some reason the music in Union Grounds was turned up so loud that I couldn’t hear myself think. That’s not relevant but I thought I would add it in there. Anyway, I asked him what he was doing that night and told him that we were going to watch TCU play Baylor in baseball. Nasser told me that he had never watched baseball but would be very interested to go and see what it was all about. I explained to him that this game was going to be a big game since Baylor is one of our big rivals.

I thought I would try and explain the rules of baseball to him so at least he would have an idea of what was going on when we got there. “It’s a pretty simple game” I told him, but as I started going over all the positions, strikes, balls, outs, innings, etc. and I realized how confusing it could be to someone who had never seen it before. I decided to draw it all out on paper, but I’m not sure how much that helped. Anyway Nasser got a quick rundown on the rules of baseball and we agreed to meet at 6:15 and walk over to the game.

So I met Nasser at 6:15 and he brought along his brother-in-law, Mohammad, and Brian’s partner, Khalifa, and their cousin. They also did not know anything about American baseball but were excited to go to a game. It was all of their first TCU sporting events since they had only been here for about two months. We got to the game just as the first pitch was being thrown and took our seats above the TCU dugout. Nasser named many of the positions that I explained to him that afternoon, and I was surprised that he had learned that much from my poor explanation. As the game went on I explained things as they happened to Nasser and Mohammad and they seemed to be understanding it as well as one can expect for the first time. They told me that they would be sure to go home and look up the rules so that next time the came they would be able to follow the game more closely.

The highlight of the game for Nasser was the Baylor team. They were chanting various things about the TCU team and cheering on their team. I’ll have to admit, even as much as I don’t like Baylor they were somewhat funny. Anyway, I had a lot of fun at the game and I think that even though he did not fully understand how it worked, Nasser had a good time as well. It was good to get outside of Union Grounds and allow Nasser to experience a new aspect of American culture. After all, baseball is America’s  pastime.