July 1, YD

So I decided I'm going to log every game I go to and record for my "Baseball Is..." project here. I may come back and update with recordings, but for now, just text...

This was almost a week ago, but I am still publishing it now before I forget it so I can keep up...

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Since this is the first game I'm writing about, I'll put down a sampling of the questions I'm asking people:

-Where are you from?
-Is this your first Cape League Game? (follow-ups about how many, etc.)
-What levels of baseball do you follow?
-Do you talk baseball with random people? (Aside from kids with microphones at games, of course...)
-What do you like about baseball?
-Do you remember your first baseball game?
-Any other memories?
-Do you notice a difference in consumption of baseball and interaction between fans and the game in the different times, locales, and levels?

And everyone finishes the interview by finishing the following sentence or paragraph: "Baseball Is..."

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This is the first time I've been to the Yarmouth-Dennis ballpark in my remembering life. I may have been there once over 10 years ago. It's a very nice place to watch a game. And more than that -- it's very interview friendly. A lot of people just sitting on the ground on seats. (Stands are not good because they are cramped and hard to navigate, not to mention the fact that if you talk to someone who isn't in the back row, you get just as much of the fans behind as the people you're interviewing.)

The reason I came to this particular game was that I was supposed to meet the Director of Media Relations (I think that's his title...) at the game and talk to him for a few innings. So I figured I'd make a whole game of it.

The first person I spoke with was an elderly man named Dick. He was not easy to interview because he gave a lot of one-word answers, but ultimately gave me a great answer to "Baseball Is..." which started the ball rolling. Also, he was easy to approach, which is always nice in a first interview for me so I could get my confidence up.

I spoke with another man sitting alone in the outfield and he told me the story of his first and second game at Fenway Park as a kid. More exciting than that was his story of introducing his own children to the game. I realized right then that I had to ask both directions -- not only who introduced my subjects to baseball, but to whom have they passed along the past-time.

I then made my way to the visiting bullpen and talked to a few of the Harwich players. I spoke with them not on tape and they were interested in what I was doing, and then on tape, one of them treated the whole thing as a joke. Another was serious with me, but not necessarily helpful. He actually was a soccer player who hurt his ankle and the school said, "You're fast; here's a baseball glove. Let's see if you can play the outfield."

The best interview was a Y-D pitcher who was selling raffle tickets. His entire premise can be summed up in his "Baseball Is..." answer: "My Life."

I ended my night watching a few innings with the aforementioned Director of Media Relations and then one with the president of the Y-D ballclub. The interviews themselves gave me a lot of information about the league, the teams I was watching, and the way each club is run -- which was beyond fascinating -- but for reasons of mostly my own fault, very few lines from each interview can be used in the final project. Not only did the subject matter veer way off from my intended topic (which I have no problem with because I learned a whole heck of a lot), but I accidentally flipped my microphone gain switch from medium to high, so a lot of the levels are too high to be able to get usable audio from.

Overall, a very successful first day of material gathering.