\nI don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care how clear or big you can make a TV, at a certain point, the viewfinder of a video camera is going to cut off.\u00c2\u00a0 As a result, when you watch a baseball game at home,
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.dimensionsguide.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/Baseball-Field.jpg\")
<\/a>you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trapped into viewing what the director of the broadcast might want to show you.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopefully it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the tight battle between pitcher and catcher, the chatter of the middle infielders, or the gesticulations of a coach desperately trying to convince his right fielder to take three more steps to his left.\u00c2\u00a0 More often than not, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jon Miller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s garish tie, a graphic of some inanely specific stat sponsored by Viagra or Levitra, or the hip young cast of that network\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hip young show ignoring the game and texting on their hip young smart-phones.<\/p>\nWhen you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re at the game, you see everything.\u00c2\u00a0 The reactions of the players in the dugout, the speed at which a reliever warms up, the total number of times a second basemen adjusts his cup, and the blonde with the big cans chatting up the overpaid star on the visiting team.<\/p>\n
On Friday, as Chris Davis stepped into the box against C.C. Sabathia, one of my friends remarked how far off third base Alex Rodriguez was positioned.\u00c2\u00a0 I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah, I bet Sabathia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to throw something off-speed here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d thinking that Davis would roll over the slower pitch and not be able to take it the other way down the third base line.<\/p>\n
Sabathia dealt low and away.\u00c2\u00a0 I looked at the scoreboard.<\/p>\n
It read SLIDER<\/em>.<\/p>\n I felt pretty good about myself.<\/p>\n Tell your 3D HDTV to do that.<\/p>\n Reason no. 1,056: The dress code<\/strong>. I wore jeans, a Yankees hat, a zip-up dry-fit long sleeve shirt, a gray hoodie, and my bright red Washington University in St. Louis baseball jacket with my last name on the back that looks like it time-traveled here from the early 1990s.\u00c2\u00a0 If I wore that out anywhere else, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be ridiculed, heckled, and forced to face the strong possibility of returning home without my fianc\u00c3\u00a9e.\u00c2\u00a0 At a Yankees game, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even rate a second glance.<\/p>\n Reason no. 2,645,901: My bright red Washington University in St. Louis baseball jacket with my last name on the back that looks like it time-traveled here from the early 1990s.<\/strong> I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about Jesse James screwing-around-on-Sandra-Bullock with skanky-Nazi-paraphernalia-clad-ladies level of cheating.<\/p>\n Reason no. 1,000,000: The game within the game.<\/strong> In my old seats in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium 1.5, we had the ultimate game within the game.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the steps near our row stuck out just a little more than all the rest.\u00c2\u00a0 People climbing the stairs unaware of the impending obstacle would often trip or stumble on the outlying ridge.<\/p>\n An expert spectator had to split his attention between the game on the field and that dreaded step.\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I could have lived with myself if I had missed some self-important entrepreneur hit that step, go down, and spill mustard-covered sausages and ketchup-doused fries all over his Armani suit.<\/p>\n Reason no. 669: No announcers.<\/strong> Oh, and if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re missing the play-by-play, you can listen to the WCBS broadcast of John Sterling and Susan Waldman while you pee.<\/p>\n Reason no. 84,848: Finding the perfect seats in an area where there shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be perfect seats.<\/strong> When it rains, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re dry under the roof.\u00c2\u00a0 When the rays of the mid-summer sun bake the infield clay, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re relatively cool in the shade.<\/p>\n
\nIt was far from baseball weather in New York on Friday night.\u00c2\u00a0 Rain steadily fell and gradually increased in intensity throughout the evening.\u00c2\u00a0 Temperatures dipped to the low forties.\u00c2\u00a0 It was one of those nights where every concession stand stocks up on hot chocolate and coffee.<\/p>\n
\nThat thing has kept me warm during so many blustery, forty-degree, strong-chance-of-rain games that it would be like cheating on it if I attended a game on a cold night wearing anything else.<\/p>\n
\nA live baseball game offers a variety of other forms of entertainment besides the contest on the field.\u00c2\u00a0 Fights, drunken falls, beach balls, organized chants, and the wave <\/a>(shudder) are all on the table.\u00c2\u00a0 A master spectator takes them all in, and yet is still ready to shoot from his seat whenever the action on the field calls for it.<\/p>\n
\nThis means no Chevrolet Player of the Game, no jargon, no shtick, no Craig Sager live on the field, no Jeep Drive of the Game, just the crowd noise, smack of the glove, and the crack of the bat.<\/p>\n
\nMy family owns a Friday season package for seats 5, 6, and 7 in row 14 of section 426 of the Grandstand.\u00c2\u00a0 For those of you that are not experts in the layout of Yankee Stadium 2.0, that means we are in the last row of the stadium, a little down the third baseline.<\/p>\n