Labor Day I may have gone to my last Giants Baseball game. Joan was out of town and I decided it would be a great time to go to a Giants game. I grabbed three friends and we made the date for a Labor Day Giants game.
The Bay Bridge was closed until Tuesday, but we decided to just head there by way of the San Mateo bridge or Highway 92. It may have taken 10 minutes longer and I ended up on the other side of A T & T park than I was before, but we were able to park free, cool.
We were there with about 37,000 of our closest friends enjoying the game against the San Diego Padres (SDP). Enjoying became a general overall term for about half way into the game I started having some concerns.
There was a fan who started a chant about every inning when the Giants were up calling the center fielder of the SDPs a "bum." As I reflect on this the same thing happened with another fan harassing the opposing center fielder when I was at a game in June. That fan didn't start a chant but ragged on him for about five minutes every inning starting in the fifth inning and beyond.
I got real tired of this fan at the Labor Day game starting this chant about the center fielder being a "bum." Finally I stood up and shouted to him, during a lull in the chanting, that I was pretty tired of his lack of creativity in harassing the opposing players. He started to engage me in a shouting match across the aisle, it was hard to hear at times because of all the other yelling, but he questioned my allegiance to the Giants. He went so far as to say I should be taking my Giants cap off, throwing it on the ground, and stomping on it, because I was such a poor fan.
I couldn't seem to get across my view that I could be fan without insulting the opposing team members. I probably removed all doubts that I was a fool that afternoon, as it says in Proverbs it is better to keep quiet than to remove all doubts about being a fool.
It hit me later that I didn't understand the "center field bleacher" culture. There was another fan in the same are who got harassed because he had on a Dodger cap. He just smiled and waved at people though there were a couple of times when he complained about how long it was taking the Giants to end the game because of poor relief pitching in the ninth inning.
I found out you could yell "Beat L.A." even just a few rows back but to throw anything at him or to curse him was out of bounds. Both times that happened other fans said, "Hey, keep it classy." I was pretty frustrated with the chanting. In fact I was even more disappointed when the ten year old boy in front of my started the "bum" chant in the eighth inning. I thought what are teaching our kids.
I think I was experiencing the game as a foreigner to this "center field" culture. If I go again, to this location, I will try to understand the culture and maybe by not participating will be a better witness and maybe even I could try to start a civil conversation. It is hard to seek more to understand then to be understood. No one was being physically assulted nor was there abuse involved. Yet for some reason it was important for the chanter to denigrate the players on the opposing team.
Maybe also I need to take stock of my prejudices when I enter into this culture and not denigrate the other person, but instead try to engage them in a dialogue.
This was not an easy time for me, but I learned more about how I need God's guidance when trying to engage someone in another culture, be it another neighborhood or at a sports arena.
Trying to see the light while trying to spread the light,
Pastor Randy
