Yesterday, we went to the ballgame in Phoenix. It was a big event for my wife and me because it was the first time we'd been to a big indoor venue since February of 2020, just as the world was shutting down for the years of the plague.
The venue was Chase Field, renowned for its swimming pool and retractable roof, which rarely gets opened up during day games, especially as we approach June and the other summer months.
The first test was taking the Metro light rail into downtown Phoenix. We chose a park and ride that had indoor parking. Our rail ride would take us through downtown Tempe and the Arizona State University campus (right past the school's basketball arena and football stadium) over the Tempe Town Lake (a dammed-up portion of the Salt River, or Rio Salado), a stop at the Sky Harbor airport's Sky Train and into downtown Phoenix by the Phoenix Convention Center.
We wore masks aboard the train, but many did not. To each his own.
Once we parked in the park and ride, we walked across the street to the light rail station and attempted to purchase tickets. I had trouble getting the automated kiosk to accept my credit card. A friendly gent, who I thought worked for the Metro line, came over to help out, and he figured out that I was putting my chip into the slot backwards. Sorry for the confusion, but two years of just tapping the card softened my insert-card-here skills. It turned out that he was not a Metro employee and was wearing his Diamondbacks colors. My wife called him an angel sent to make our day easy and enjoyable.
So for the first time in a long time, we were out in a place where we didn't know people, with an assortment of strangers just waiting for the train. We chatted with the guy who helped us. There was another guy waiting who was dressed up as security, but actually that was his costume for Phoenix Fan Fusion, a comics and other pop culture event being held at the Convention Center. Another attendee, dressed all in black as Obi-Wan Kenobi - with contact lenses and a swooshing, lights-up lightsaber - also bought a ticket and stood with us.
Talking with the fellow in the security gear, I told him about when I attended the Comic Art Convention in New York City back in 1980 and met Bob Kane, the nominal creator of Batman. Kane was a special guest that year as movie producers attending that convention announced that their plans for a Batman movie were a go. As we chatted about that and Fan Fusion, he told us that because of construction work that was shutting down the eastbound station outside Chase Field, we'd have to come back to the westbound station to board the light rail back to our park and ride. My wife called him another angel sent to make our day easy and enjoyable.
We boarded the train without any problem. We got separated from the angel who helped us get our ticket, but security guy and Obi-Wan were right there with us. Obi-Wan said that he figured he should go in costume, but didn't know what to wear, and finally decided on this simple choice. I noted how timely it was since the mini-series "Obi-Wan Kenobi" recently launched on the Disney Plus streaming service. We laughed and they both started talking about the series and then about a variety of games that gave these two strangers a portal to an enjoyable conversation.
We alighted on the platform in downtown Phoenix and walked down to the ballpark. At the gate, we were greeted by a ticket-taker. Well, maybe we should call them ticket-scanners now, because even if you have a paper ticket, all they do is scan the barcode on it. No tearing at the perforation to give you the stub that tells you where your seats are. Just about everybody has tickets on their phone rather than paper anyway. (I'm reminded of the Progressive Insurance commercial where a young homeowner who is turning into his dad is told he doesn't have to print the Internet.)
Anyway, the jovial ticket scanner told us about a great stand to get street tacos right near our seats. Another angel? Sure, why not?
Then, there was the game. Let me preface my comments about that by saying that I have been a Diamondbacks fan since before they played their first game. I was won over by the team's hiring of Buck Showalter, who had done a great job of reviving the Yankees in the previous few years. He led the Yanks to the postseason in 1995, the first time the storied (and, depending on your point of view, hated) team had played in the postseason since 1961, setting the stage for the Yankees' World Series win under his successor Joe Torre in 1996.
The Dbacks also had Joe Garagiola Jr. as their general manager and hired power hitter Matt Williams right after he played for the then-Cleveland Indians in their 1997 World Series loss to the then-Miami Marlins. These moves convinced me the team would not go through the long doldrums that other expansion franchises went through. Hey, the Marlins got a World Series win only five seasons after the team's inaugural year. I was sure we (as if I were playing on the Diamondbacks) were going to beat that.
Getting back to the game, it was a sad one. The stands were filled with a sea of Dodger Blue, and a relatively meager presence of Diamondbacks fans. When the Dodgers did something good, it sounded like we were in the stadium at Chavez Ravine. A 3-1 loss was not exactly fun. (I repeated to anyone who might listen my own baseball superstition, that if a team changes the team colors from the ones they wore in their World Series win - as the Dbacks have done - then they'll never win a World Series again.)
After one particularly loud, late-inning chant of "Let's go Dodgers." I just piped up and shouted, "Let's not," and a Dodger fan across the aisle looked over at me and smiled. We had a good conversation about past stars of the Diamondbacks and how much he admired Randy Johnson's pitching and how the budget for the Dodgers was so much bigger than the Diamondbacks'. Money changes everything, as we all know.
Still, it was a friendly conversation and reminded me that, after all, that this is a game and we're all out here to enjoy the time with friends and fans, even fans of the other team. Another angel? Sure.
On the light rail home, we were again swallowed by a raucous sea of blue, all supercharged that the Dodgers had swept the local team in the just-finished four-game series. Another "Let's go Dodgers" cheer erupted, and I said, "Yeah, you can go now." Another Dodger fan gave me a fist-bump.
That fan turned out to be part of a Hispanic family visiting relatives in town and as a group they all went to the game. Now, they were having a rollicking discussion about where to eat once they got off the Metro. My wife started chiming in with local suggestions for them. The group went back and forth, making their own suggestions, but never seeming to come to a conclusion. I said, in mock exasperation at the prolonged discussion, "La famiglia," which is Italian for "the family" but which sounds pretty much exactly the same as the Spanish "la familia," and the young woman sitting next to me - part of the family having the discussion - laughed knowingly.
Finally, one of the women in the group put it to my wife to decide for them and invited us to come with them to have dinner wherever she decided.
My wife humbly demurred saying it just wasn't our place to decide for them.
After we got off the light rail a few stops before theirs, I wondered what would have happened if we'd accepted the invitation.
I kind of regret it because if they were willing to drive us to whatever restaurant and then back to the station where they got off, well, we had an all-day light rail pass and we could have taken the train back to the car anytime that evening, and we could have enjoyed this company of angels, too. Maybe the Dodgers brought los angeles (the angels) with them.
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