To the Editor:
At a recent Mets home game, I had some revealing interactions with a young man seated next to me.
He asked me which smartphone app I had used to buy my parking pass and tickets. He was appalled when I pulled out the Ticketmaster tickets I had printed from my home computer onto good, old paper. He seemed almost desperate to change my ways as he described the wonders of several apps, and the discounts I could have received.
I am a traditionalist. Years ago, as I pulled into the parking lot before a game, I told my wife, “Be ready to hand me the parking pass.” The pass was in plain sight on the seat between us, but my wife obliged me by seizing it and striking a dramatic pose with a face of extreme readiness. We have reenacted that scene before every game since then. That is worth a sheet of paper to us.
There was a disputed call at second base. When I told my wife that we could look up the replay online when we got home, the young man helpfully held his phone out and told me that we could see it right away. He did not understand that being in the moment and then having a little after-action session at home might be more fun than the instant gratification available on the phone.
Here’s a shocker: We actually absorb the game in person with our eyes and ears – fallible instruments, to be sure – and then we talk about it all later, from memory. Disputes arise and are settled, all without using technology.
The young man also ordered and received his food and drink using an app, all without budging from his seat. How contented he looked as his snack was handed to him, just like it used to happen in kindergarten! This raises an important question: If you don’t go seek out the best-looking hot dogs (they are not the same everywhere, every time), and if you don’t stand in line and let desire erase your misguided resolve not to get a bag of Cracker Jacks this time, and if you don’t carry your food and a large drink back to your seat while climbing a steep concrete stairway and finally shuffling sideways in front of people without spilling anything, have you really had the complete stadium food experience? I think not.
While people of all ages use smartphones nowadays, I have noticed that it is younger people who have their eyes on their phones most of the time who think that baseball moves too slowly and that over a century of tradition should be changed.
At the risk of sounding older than my 60 years, in my day we understood that by going to a ballgame you were committing a good chunk of your day to the enterprise and that everything about it, from getting to the game to watching the game to making your way back home, was part of the fun. We did not and still do not want it hurried up or wrapped in a snazzy package.
We are also die-hard opponents of the designated hitter, but are fine with the infield shift. Learn to aim your hits, batters. Perhaps we are strange.
It is funny that even as fully computer-literate boomers, our ways seem antiquated to younger folks. To each his own, but I think that by not relying on the smartphone for everything, we enjoy life more. Well, live baseball games, at least. Try it sometime.
