SUNDAY AUGUST 17th BOSTON.........BLANKETY BLANK!

The day of the Ball Game as they say here in the US. Merlin had been looking forward to this and I didn't want to dash his hopes but I have already experienced baseball in Cleveland on a previous visit and I know that it's less than exciting. We have to pause here and return to my new friend Rich from Boston, who I met in Washington. Now Rich didn't seem like the sports type of guy, more the sort that enjoyed the corporate entertainment that went with it, but nevertheless a fun and interesting character. He had experienced cricket in England and his opinion was that during the game, in Gloucestershire somewhere, he would have been grateful for a bullet through the head during the proceedings. I didn't seek his opinion about the game of baseball as I didn't need to, having been there myself in a previous life. And I kind of knew what he would say. But Merlin was determined and I didn't want to disappoint him. But Rich would have been looking for a revolver.

With Trish all Cheered out, I ordered tickets, the cheapest I could find, for The Game. Now for those of you who have never experienced baseball, here is a brief synopsis. The idea is to get as many runs as you can in nine inning. A run is a fat unfit geezer running through last base. Hey, does this not sound like rounders? Yes it does! And that's what it is, except it's more complicated at The Plate. It seems, that a hitter has three strikes before he is struck out for not hitting the ball. However, there are a number of foul throws allowed before a batter can Walk. Problem is here is that the bleacher crowd, us, sitting high in The Gods on a cheap ticket, have no idea what is a good ball or bad until it flashes up on the giant scoreboard. Even when watching it on TV, you don't really have much of a discriminatory idea about the various pitches. I assumed that during our game, from the number of balls, rather that strikes that were delivered, that Kelly, the Red Sox Pitcher, was in need of an urgent visit to Specsavers. But you could not be sure. Some balls, looking perfectly good to me were called bad whilst balls exactly the same were called good. The long and the short of this is that each inning, takes a long time to complete and is completely mystifying. Cricket is streamlined by comparison.

So there we sat, in the bleachers, the cheap seats, high up, uncovered, at the mercy of the midday and afternoon sun. And it was hot. Sporadically, a blue fug would make its way across the ground and the smell was exactly like your neighbour's shite attempt at a barbecue. It hung there like the smog in downtown LA of the seventies.

At first Merlin was well into the proceedings, but he made the Big Mistake of waiting for something to happen. Which it never really did. The game preceded along its sedentary path, and the crowd, made up of families enjoying a day out, were more concerned with their next soda or piece of pizza than the unfolding game. A Mexican wave was attempted, the highlight of the afternoon it could be said, but wasn't maintained. Some sporadic chanting occurred but wasn't of Wembley proportions. I could see, out of the corner of my eye, Merlin beginning to wilt. He began mopping his brow, trying not only to make sense of the Ball Game, but also keep cool up there under the sun.

A pathetic third inning saw Red Sox go 5-0 down. Then there was a controversial play in the fourth which again was not communicated to the crowd or explained via the scoreboard. We had to wait until we got home and watch the highlights to find out what had happened. By this time Merlin was resembling an ice lolly too long out of the freezer in the midday sun. I made a mental to take him to a 20/20 game next summer to prove once and for all the superiority of cricket over the sedentary baseball. It's true folks. The taxi driver that took us to the ground was right. When I informed him that Trish wasn't going to The Game and needed dropping off at the hotel, he responded with 'lucky her'. I should have known. Hang on, I did know, what a friend I am! Or an idiot. At least Merlin leaned a new colloquialism, it has to do with paint and drying. Ask him.