The Games People Play

 

People, the world over, love to play games … usually competitively. Games that are popular in one country are sometimes unknown in another. Folks in Fiji rarely play hockey. Folks in the US rarely participate in banana relays. Traveling from country to country as we do, we get a chance to witness games that are different and many that are the same.

Football is an interesting sport. What we call football in America is not the same as Australian football. And actually, to most of the world, football is soccer and not at all like football as we know it in the USA, or Australian football for that matter. Then there's rugby, of course, which isn't like either American or Australian football. Soccer is certainly played in the US, but it's nowhere near as popular here as it is in the rest of the world.

Baseball is played in other countries, but its roots are here in America. Whitman said it's “America's game” and it's hard to find someone who doesn't have a favorite team. Oh, they play it in Asia and Europe, but it's nothing like the Americas (both of them). Little League is big here and if you grew up in the States you probably played sandlot baseball when you were a kid. On the other hand, we have no explanation for cricket. The bat is odd, the games last a long time and we don't understand the rules.

Basketball, both men's and women's, is played in several places throughout the world although the rules seem to differ depending upon the country. One fond memory was a group of young Embera men in the Darien Jungle of Panama playing basketball in loincloths in the middle of their village. It's an image that stays with you.

We've watched polo, a rich man's sport, but it's definitely not a team sport that most folks will ever expect to play.

Chess, checkers, backgammon and dominoes seem to be popular worldwide games. Cruisers in Mexico and the Carib were crazy for Mexican train dominoes, but we never caught the fever. We especially love those huge chess sets in downtown city parks where people have to move human size chess pieces from square to square.

In the Amazon, we played Sapo. Sapo in Spanish translates to frog and the object of the game was to throw a disc from a measured distance into a golden frog's mouth or into specifically marked holes with numerical values assigned to them. The person with the highest point score wins. There's some skill involved, but the novelty wore off rather quickly.

In French Polynesia, we participated in traditional Polynesian games which included stone lifting, banana relays, coconut husking and outrigger races. Needless to say, though the locals provided instruction and encouragement, we were a sad-looking bunch. It was fun nonetheless.

Re-enactments are popular in many countries. Here in the US, we attended several Civil War re-enactments. Depending whether we were north or south of the Mason-Dixon Line determined who won the particular battle. In Vanuatu, we witnessed a different kind of re-enactment where a century ago locals had attacked arriving missionaries … and subsequently eaten them. The re-enactment stopped just before the “having missionaries for dinner” part, but the attack was definitely authentic looking.

On board, we play lots of card games. Cribbage and gin rummy are two of our favorites. We play backgammon on occasion and Speed Scrabble whenever I can talk David into it. As uncompetitive as we are between us, we still keep score and have been for years. At last count, David was ahead 5,345 to my paltry 5210.

We regularly watch young folks in their tiny Optimist sailboats racing through anchorages and adeptly maneuvering around the big boats and the race markers. Though we always claim we are not interested in racing, it is said that whenever two sailboats are heading the same direction, it's a race. Quite honestly, we truly are not racers and we don't care … but we do like to arrive first.

Baseball

I see great things in baseball. It's our game – the American game. - Walt Whitman

It's baseball season! I don't ever remember not knowing about baseball. My Dad, who seldom ventured into the big city of Boston from our home 50 miles away, took me to see the Boston Red Sox play at Fenway Park at least once every year. Dad was a busy, hard-working blue-collar guy who still managed to get house chores done. No matter what needed to be done, however, when the Boston Red Sox played a televised game, he'd grab a beer and sit and watch it. Mom would join him. She loved the Red Sox, too. At 86, she still does.

It's a pretty easy game. A guy from one team pitches a ball to a guy on the other team who's holding a bat. The batter tries to hit the ball. He's got three chances, with some accommodation for foul balls and such. If he's successful, he runs and touches as many bases as he can (up to four), while the other team tries to catch the ball and touch him or the base before he gets there. If he's unsuccessful, he strikes out. Or if the pitcher doesn't throw strikes or hits the batter … hmm ... it's really sounding a bit more complicated than I imagined. We took a South African friend to a game once and tried explaining the rules as the game progressed. He gave up after awhile in frustration.

Some think it's a boring game. Nine innings can seem interminable sitting in the stands if you don't like the game or understand it. According to Ray Fitzgerald in the Boston Globe, a critic once characterized baseball as six minutes of action crammed into two-and-one-half hours. According to others, however, baseball is life.

Baseball has its own terminology. Bunts, stolen bases, designated hitters, curve balls, screwballs and knuckle balls, the bullpen and the 7th inning stretch. It's also got lots of colloquial expressions associated with it like the Bronx cheer, deuces and dingers. It's even got its own song and you'd be hard pressed to find a kid in America that doesn't know “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. There are lots of movies about baseball. My favorites are “Bull Durham” and “Field of Dreams”, but that may have something to do with Kevin Costner. I remember making a family pilgrimage to Cooperstown, New York in the early 1960's to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It was quite the trip.

Abner Doubleday is credited with the invention of the game. The earliest known mention of baseball in the United States was a 1791 Pittsfield, Massachusetts ordinance banning the playing of the game within 80 yards (73m) of the town meeting house. Nowadays, from April through September, 30 teams including one from Canada, play 162 games culminating in the World Series. In the summertime, it's truly the American pasttime.

I did a little research about baseball, mostly because I really like trivia. I learned things like

• The average life of a baseball in the major leagues is 6 pitches.
• Rawlings Sporting Goods produces 20,000 baseballs for the professional major leagues per year in their Costa Rica plant. Minor league balls are produced in China.
• Each ball must weigh between 5 to 5.25 ounces, is covered in cowhide (used to be horsehide, but that's hard to come by these days) and must be handsewn with 108 stitches.

• Before every game the umpires rub down each ball with river-bottom mud obtained from a tributary of the Delaware River in New Jersey. Really! I didn't believe this one, but sure enough Lena Blackburn's Baseball Rubbing Mud is still in use.

Not familiar with baseball? From another country or planet? Try watching Abbott and Costello's “Who's on First” for a better explanation.