Baseball Converse-sations

What’s it like going to a baseball game in hostile territory? “I guess it would depend on where we’re sitting,” say my converse sneakers. While attending a baseball game, rooting on the Giants at Dodgers Stadium, we got Field Level seats in our usual section behind the Visitor’s dugout, between home and first base. Although we’ve all heard the crazy stories of the visiting team’s fans getting heckled, harassed, and even assaulted in the parking lot, we’ve never personally had an issue attending a game in LA wearing Giants gear. On our way to meet up with several friends, with seats in different parts of the stadium, we passed through several different sections. My converses noticed that the higher we went towards the top deck, the louder it became, and the more we wondered whether wearing a Giants hat was a good idea. A group of ten all ended up on the Club Level at the Stadium Club restaurant with an awesome gourmet all-you-can eat buffet, sitting at an outdoor table on the patio with a great view overlooking the field, enjoying the game and enjoying great conversations. My sneakers; however, told me that they overheard a man around the corner complain to his companion that there were too many Giants fans and it was too damn loud. As the night went on the Dodgers were up, we all heard a Dodgers fan ask a Giants fan if he wanted to get thrown over the balcony after he was heard rooting for his team. My converses commented, “I truly believe that we’ve come a long way in terms of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination; however, it seems like society has created other ‘-isms’ in terms of people having prejudices against others who don’t think alike or who don’t share the same interests. Of course, there’s still a lot of ignorance and bias in this world, but more than ever it seems like every one is polarized based on our belief systems… liberals vs. conservatives, pro-lifer vs. pro-choices, Republicans vs. Democrats…” I ask them if we should we call this beliefism? My converses took our casual baseball conversation on a slight tangent, but they tried to make a point about the hecklers saying, “They are a perfect example of the those who think others are automatic arch enemies just by rooting for opposing teams, and they are supposed to hate each other. I don’t know, call that teamism.” I say, maybe one day we can have a conversation about it with some one from the other team. What happens when that person just simply disagrees with what we’re saying? What do we call that? Can’t call if Disagreeism. My converse reply, “What happens when that person says, yes why don’t we both go outside and talk about it, but I assure you there won’t be a whole lot of talking…” That’s when I say we better get the hell out of dodge(r’s stadium). When the Giants lost the game that’s exactly what we did, which meant I had to do more walking with my shoes and less talking. That was the end of that baseball converse-sation.