trying to explain baseball

As a companion piece to yesterday's post trying to explain football, today is a brief bit on baseball. Unlike American football, baseball is at least popular in some other countries so it is not asked about as often. For instance, I have never had to explain to a Venezuelan why baseball is played in the U.S. However, it does receive its fair share of complaints from non-Americans who find fault with the game, especially its pace. However, in contrast to American football, those complaints are very similar to the same ones that non-fans from America also have about baseball.

American football is of course not something for everyone in the U.S. However, even domestic non-fans understand the sport's place in American culture and can at least comprehend why the sport is so popular because they end up surrounded by signs of the sport's obvious popularity. This is an insight foreigners rarely have and explaining football's popularity is much more difficult because it is hard to easily explain how football is able to hold great cultural significance to someone who has not lived in that culture. Contrast this with baseball which, despite being America's pastime, has ceded the number one spot of professional sports to its beefy football brother. In doing so, it also draws less fascination from foreigners who rarely ask why baseball is poplar in the U.S. Well, at least the ones I talk with. Instead, they ask why is the sport so slow and they instantly get their answer on why it is not the dominant sport in the U.S. The "too slow" refrain is all too common, but also not fair. Again, Jack comes through with a theory on why many dislike baseball based on a lack of understanding of the finer points of the sport.

I have yet to get a really good opportunity to explain baseball to a non-fan here. It doesn't come up as a topic as often as American football, but perhaps I can win someone over.

In a note related to yesterday's pool party, I met one of the two Peace Corps Volunteers in Balkanabat. She lives with the family of one of our employees. There are only 29 PCVs in Turkmenistan and that number is gradually going down.

at the store

Seen being purchased by the man in front of me:
1 pack of 36 rolls of toilet paper
1 other pack, different brand, of 36 rolls of toilet paper
1 bottle of wine
1 bottle of Scotch (Chivas Regal)
2 bottles of whiskey, different brand than the above Scotch
1 bottle of multi-vitamins
1 container of peeled garlic, 3 lbs
2 pack of chocolate syrup, 48 oz. each
16 pairs of socks
1 blood pressure monitor

He was 30-something, well-dressed, clean-cut, with a wedding ring and was joined as he was leaving by a man I assumed to be his father. If you haven't figured it out yet, this was at a warehouse store, which in Farmington means it was at Sam's Club.

You obviously can't get a complete picture about what someone purchases in a typical run to the store based on seeing their cart one time. People make all sorts of random trips to pick up miscellaneous items, go to multiple stores, plan for parties, etc. Nonetheless, what caught my eye was the toilet paper. I'm down with the two 36-packs of toilet paper, maybe one was for his father, though I got the impression they lived at the same residence. But different brands? Despite what the commercials may have you think, toilet paper is toilet paper is toilet paper. There are only two kinds and only one is available for purchase in stores and that would be the good enough kind. The bad kind is found in college dorms and offices like mine and is only found in someone's home when the last bit of the over-sized roll is removed and placed on top of the dispenser and a new roll is put in and a person takes that remaining portion of a roll, which is still the equivalent of two regular rolls, home with them (which is not something I do, but someone I will always be affiliated with used to do that, but I'm pretty sure no longer does). Take that run-on police!

The other thing that caught my eye is that none of that was what non-vampire fearing people consider to be real food. Unless of course you make meals out of only chocolate syrup, garlic, vitamins, and maybe socks for texture.