Dropping the Ball

(photo from Yahoo! Sports)

Manny knows what's up.

My phone rang at 10:20 last night. The caller ID said “Dad.”

“Hi,” I said, “Did they win?”

I could almost hear him winding up, “What do you mean ‘did they win?’ You weren’t watching? Get on the stick!”

“I have friends over, Dad. We’re having a dinner party. The game isn’t on.”

“YOU’RE NOT WATCHING THE GAME! This is August! It’s not like it’s May or something with some little dinky series against Tampa Bay. It’s freakin’ August!”

“It’s the Royals, Dad.”

“It’s August! It’s pennant race time!”

“So…did we win?”

“What? Yeah, we won. Manny hit a three run homer and they won 6-4 after being down 4-0.”

“Oh yeah, I got your message about Manny’s homer.”

“And what the hell were you doing?” Dad said.

“I have people here. High school friends, Dad. Mollie, Lauren, Muy. They don’t care about baseball.”

“Well it’s about damn time you teach them!”

“Colleen’s learning. But the rest of them don’t care.” I said.

“Where did you find these friends?” he asked, laughing, “They’ll understand.”

“So what you’re saying,” I said, “Is that I’ve been friends with these people for ten years. They’re still going to like me if I check the score of the Sox game?”

“YES!” Dad said.

“Okay then.”

A few minutes later, after hearing an abbreviated play by play from The Rick, I hung up and rejoined my friends in the living room.

“Sorry,” I said, “Rick was very disappointed that I wasn’t watching the game.”

They all laughed.

“So,” said Mollie a second later, “Did we win?”