"How to Add Ten Years to Your Life With a Trip to the Ballpark," or, "How to Post a Blog Entry Without Doing Any New Writing"

Ok, I guess it's time to really kick this thing off.

I took a class called "Writing on Music" in the Spring of 2008, and one of our assignments was to describe a "soundscape," be it natural or man-made. The idea was that sound is (clearly) the Integral Element to music, and in order to understand music, one has to tune themselves into sound in general. I thought this was a great way of thinking about the music that I love, and moreso why it appeals to me. It was also an excuse for me to write an essay about baseball, and the town that I love. Now it has become an excuse for me to post something about these two subjects on this blog. So there. Also, it's a great way for me to get a bit of Virtual Ink down here without doing any legitimate work. I pass the savings on to you. I hope you like it. Just don't ask me to do the accent for you like my professor did.


How to Add Ten Years to Your Life With a Trip to the Ballpark


Car horns, sirens, cabbies yelling obscenities at each other through their open windows; these are the major elements of the man-made soundscape. They are not generally the sounds one might choose to play in their zen garden. However, not all man-made soundscapes are created equal, and there is one that does in fact refresh mind, body, and soul. The ballpark.

It’s a cloudless Sunday afternoon in Boston. This city is bustling, and you are on your way to Fenway Park. You duck into the subway. The soundscape underground is palpable, tangible; there is a constant high-pitched whine of electricity emanating from the rails, and it is punctuated by the sound of metal wheels screaming as they slide across steel, echoing through the darkness of the tunnels beyond the platform. On the train is no more pleasant an environment. The car is crowded, as everyone is going to the same place. There is a tension and excitement in the voices around that raises each one in decibel and pitch, and for the short ride out to the ballpark there is no escaping the abrasive soundwaves of the subway.

Relief is coming, however. As you depart the subway system in Kenmore Square, and make the traditional walk across the bridge over the Massachusetts Turnpike, the sounds of the ballpark begin to release you from this tension. The sounds of a ballgame are like any piece of music; it is comprised of many different parts or instruments with their own distinctive sounds and cadences. As you reach the Pike, the first instrument that arrives is the Scalpers. “Tickets— anyone buyin’ tickets, sellin’ tickets…,” they repeat with precise inflection. As you wade through the crowds to Yawkee Way, there is a distant, unintelligible rumble of the PA announcer listing the starting lineups inside the park, followed by a steady rain of cheers or jeers, depending on the team.

Yawkee Way has its own distinctive sounds. Its beat is set by the two-toned electronic pulse of ticket barcodes being scanned and accepted, followed immediately by the cranking of metal turnstiles. “Scoahcahds, programs—get yah official Red Sox scoahcahds heah!” shouts a man on stilts in a team logo WWII helmet. In the distance, an Irish brass band is playing, and the air is disrupted only by the occasional cheers, “oh!”s, and laughter as another man on stilts tries to play catch with anyone who will look his way across the crowded street. All the while there is a constant chatter of excited fans and the sizzle of sausages on the grill.


Enter the caverns and halls beneath the famed seating of America’s oldest ballpark. Not all echoes are alike; there is a distinctive reverberation that comes from the 100 year old green metal that supports the stands. Indistinguishable but excited crowd noise and grill sizzles dominate this darkened passage. A chant of “Let’s go Red Sox” gets louder and louder before fading once again, as one anxious fan passes on the way to his seats-- the Drunken Doppler Effect. There is a light ahead. The crowd chatter that was until now mere white noise becomes stronger as you near the opening, until finally you reach the threshold of the open park and it becomes a roar.

Immediately there is the crack of a wooden bat, followed by a giant cheer. Leather on leather slaps as the ball reaches first base, and another cheer, this time slightly louder, goes up as the umpire signals the runner in safe. “Now batting, the right fielder, Manny… Ramirez.” Drones the PA announcer in deliberate monotone. Another cheer goes up, followed by ten seconds of some rap song, distorted by the fuzzy speakers of the old ballpark soundsystem.
With one final clank, you settle into the old wooden seat. You have reached the destination of your journey of sound.

This soundscape is familiar and inviting. White noise is often overlooked, but it is the most important element of sound to wash away one’s troubles. The ocean has its white noise: the constant washing of sand or rock. The woods have theirs; it is the wind blowing through the pines. A ballpark’s background noise is unlike any other. There is the low murmur and constant chatter of the crowd. On a cloudless afternoon at the ballpark, even the sun seems to buzz slightly, like the distant hum of secedas. The man-made soundscape of the ballpark is a combination of the sounds of summer and the familiar noises of America’s game.



Perhaps the soothing quality of the sounds of the ballpark lies in this familiarity. The stresses of human life are piled on as we grow older, and a trip to a baseball game brings us back to a simpler time, to our childhood. Going to a baseball game as a kid is part of the American experience, and in a fast-paced society such as this, baseball is one of the only things that remains virtually unchanged. Even the cadences of the vendors who walk the steps at Fenway has been the same since I was 8 years old. “ICE cream. HEY ICe cream, heAH.” The sound of metal tongs clanking against the sides of a metal box as they reach in for a Fenway Frank, or the top shutting hard as a piping hot ‘dog is handed down the line to an anxious kid. The sound of a bag of peanuts, caught by a fan after being thrown by the vendor ten rows away.

You don’t have to like Neil Diamond, but when the middle of the 8th comes around, and 36,000 people are singing along to Sweet Caroline and pumping their fists in unison, you get it. When the home team wins, and they blast The Standells’ Dirty Water and Dropkick Murphys’ Tessie, you get it.

All of these things make a person feel like a kid again. They make you forget every hardship, every responsibility— even if it’s just for nine simple innings. A ballpark is a man-made sanctuary for the mind and spirit in its feast for all the senses, a respite from the abrasive man-made world in the city that surrounds it. Even if it is just for the afternoon, the ballpark makes you a kid again, and refreshes your soul.






Author and Older (Taller) Brother at the Ballpark