Braves vs Marlins in early April

If it's April it must be time for me to beat my head against a wall - baseball season has begun: that wonderful season of fascination where I project my childhood dreams of athletic prowess onto fallible individuals, who actually possess such prowess, only to be frustrated by their failure to hold a lead or to hit a small horsehide ball pitched very fast. I'm learning to not care - as Eliot wrote: "teach us to care and not to care." Still this is a happy night for me. I'm at a Braves game in early April with my lovely wife, Jami. She loves baseball. She can love baseball without all the baggage that I grew up with. I see Mark Redman giving up five runs to start off the game - she sees a poor man who is in search of his dignity.
Here we are at the game: Jami radiates happiness in the moment - a beer, a New York dog, sitting in the stands with me as I shout at the Marlin's third baseman. What fun we're having and you can see it in her face. Meanwhile, by the sixth inning, with the Braves safely out of the game, I'm thankful that I had the foresight to bring Barth's Church Dogmatics IV,iii,2 along with me.