Green: I know exactly what I’m missing

I’m sure you’ve noticed the same thing: You’re at the grocery store, and you stroll up to the shortest checkout line. You wait patiently, perhaps surreptitiously glancing at “Celeb Cellulite!” in Star magazine (but maybe that’s just me). All is well. The line grinds steadily forward. That is, until the person in front of you wants to pay with a combination of Travelers checks and Monopoly money. You seethe as the little old lady in the aisle next to you checks out her shopping cart overflowing with cat food in record time.

Or you’re toodling along the highway when suddenly you find yourself in a spot of traffic. The right lane seems to be going faster, so after much colorful language and many spirited hand gestures, you wrestle the car over there, only to find that, mysteriously, now it’s the left lane that’s moving.

Or, like me, you assiduously follow the Sox. You want to watch them every night, but let’s face it — with 162 games, that’s not always possible. Say you have to work a late shift or maybe leave town for a few days. Or, purely hypothetically, the long-awaited seventh Harry Potter book finally arrives and you feel compelled to spend all weekend closeted with the 759-page tome. And suddenly — the moment your back is turned — the Sox score 29 runs in three games. Three games that you, for perfectly good reasons, didn’t see.

Nothing compares to watching the game as it unfolds. Watching highlights or reading the box score just isn’t the same. For one, they just don’t assuage the guilt. The feeling that you should have been there. Who said you could have a life? It’s baseball season. Are you a fan…or are you a fake?

Nevertheless, baseball has a more forgiving pace than football. Football means a weekly, unmissable appointment with the Patriots. But baseball, the sport of summer, keeps a more relaxed calendar. Drop by if you have three hours — baseball will be waiting for you. And like an old friend, it won’t greet you with tapping foot or pointed glances at the watch. Indeed, baseball is so easy-going, it doesn’t even demand our full attention. It’s content to keep us company while we paint the toolshed or weed the garden.

Baseball may be laid-back, but that doesn’t mean I am. I’d just like to be able to watch a Sox game, with my undivided attention, start-to-finish — and watch them actually win. My record for the past couple of weeks has gotten so bad, I’m starting to wonder if it’s not runners left on base, but me.

With a game almost every night, baseball will forgive you for missing a few. If only you could forgive yourself.

Sarah Green is a freelance writer who cam be reached at sgreen@gmail.com.