I took this at around 8 a.m., maybe even earlier, on New Year’s Day in Memphis. It was a wild day. I walked everywhere. I walked for miles and miles. I saw no one. Not a car on the road. Not a person. No sign of life. Granted, it was New Year’s Day. Everyone was hungover and asleep. But it was this eerie beautiful morning where I had the city “to myself” and there were times I literally walked down the middle of normally very busy streets, along the double yellow lines, because as far as the eye could see was empty road. This is the baseball field right in the middle of things in Memphis. I have been drawn to it every time I go to Memphis and someday, darn it, I will attend a ballgame there. So far, though, it’s been locked and quiet. (My trips to Memphis have all been winter trips.) But you can clearly see inside, you can see the big lights around the field, you can see the green slopes of grass, and the beautiful compact little baseball field. It reminds me of John Updike’s description of Fenway Park in his famous New Yorker essay about Ted Williams’ final game: “lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.”
The focus on this one is “off” but I like it anyway because you can tell what that is, all blurry in the background.
What a joy to have something approaching a normal opening day. We were able to attend the Mariners game against the Giants Friday. The players are smaller, but the game is bigger than watching on TV. It’s the sport you played as a kid, with players as good as you wished to be.
I like the blurry background. There’s so much for the imagination.
// We were able to attend the Mariners game against the Giants Friday.//
Ohhh that’s awesome! I can’t wait to go to a baseball game again!