On Sunday Jan, Finn, Arthur and I drove a hundred and thirty miles northeast to go to Modesto California. We went to attend a Modesto Nuts baseball game.

The Nuts are a minor League team who are in the Seattle Mariner organisation. I was a little disappointed when I got to the Park the field announcer called the team the “Modesto Mariners”. I suppose they were trying to jack up their Reputation by referring to themselves as “Mariners". While I, on the other hand would be proud to play for the “Nuts.” I bought Arthur and Finn plenty of Nuts merch because it looks so great on them. Arthur looks like a nut anyway.

Perhaps they are thinking about themselves as Mariners these days because there Modesto is surrounded by oceanic lakes and reservoirs full to the brim from the winter flooding and now the spring runoff from the record snowfall in the mountains. One lake which last year was barely a puddle now spreads out for miles, we could not see to the other side. But still we saw no boats nor Mariners out on the windy lakes. We saw Almond fields, and beautifully green pastures for cows and goats: Apple trees and other fruit growing for miles on end. The water managers are going to have their hands full if the runoff is too sudden. The scale of the flooding could be huge. Thousands of acres underwater.

Modesto is lovely once you get off the freeway. The stadium was small but substantial and sits near a city park in a nice neighborhood of old cottages. A a good seat above the dugout was fourteen dollars. The crowd seemed happily diverse. Perhaps fifty percent Hispanic I suppose Though It’s hard to tell by sight not so hard to cock an ear toward the crowd to hear Spanish being spoken. Kids roamed in packs happily jumbled together begging parents for snack money. The adults spending their money on a cold beer and watching the game.

It was warm n Modesto on Sunday, over seventy degrees. a good day for baseball. The play was high quality. One home run and very few forced errors. I like watching the lower leagues. I spent a happy week in Fairbanks watching the Gold Panners which is a summer league of top college players trying to get noticed by the big league scouts. I find the lower level play more exciting for the most part than the MLB. While watching the Nuts you can enjoy what fans call “small ball.” Outs made along the baseline. Good pitching but not dozens pitchers at the ready in the bull pen. Players caught in a pickle. Runners thrown out while trying to steal, or maybe just a little to enthusiastic in their lead off. Anyway I enjoy small ball. Mistakes are the best thing about baseball. So too, I think imperfections are what carry my interest in literature .

One mistake surely must be that they didn’t play Prince’s song, “Let’s Go Crazy” with the second line being: LETS GO NUTS! Which I had been singing on the car ride from Carmel so often that I was hopeful Arthur would start singing it with me. But no… his favorite song remain’s Baa Baa Black sheep which is a fine song but probably not appropriate at the ball park. I have to say it is a pretty archaic song. “One for my master, one for my dame, one for the little boy who lives down the lane…” I’m still holding out for the Modesto Mariners adopting LETS GO CRAZY… LETS GO NUTS!! as their fight song,

On the way home from the Nuts game with a brand new ball.

Here is an old poem I wrote for a project with a friend about the effects of Parkinson’s disease.