*ahem* is that a BoSox hat I spy? Where's your Twins gear?

Baseball, as you know, espouses a gentler, more civil time. Yes, it has always had its rowdies; the statue behind Greenberg of Ty Cobb sliding into base, spikes held high, recognizes this. And it is true, that prior to Casey at the Bat, women and children were discouraged from seeing a game played by tobacco spitting, foul mouthed ragamuffins, but, in sum, baseball serves as a reminder that there can be a better world. For it is the baseball field where one sees the conjoining of poetry and mathematics, order within chaos.

While all sports try to greater and lesser degrees, none comes close to the idyllic that baseball achieves in spite of its current commissioner and his "forward thinking" views. All one needs is a picture of Joe Maurer leading off second and one knows that the cultural breakdown led by the Rovian ethic is doomed to failure.

But, and this was really my point, you were correct in leaving your hat on, as was the message. Rules of etiquette, which tend to be universally ignored nowadays, require gentlemen, but not women, to remove their hats. You can argue the rationale, but it is a sign of respect for men to uncover their heads and it is a sign of respect for women to keep their heads covered.

So while you were surprised and somewhat annoyed, once again baseball, in its inimitable fashion, taught you a lesson in etiquette that your parents missed.

Jeff: It is a Red Sox hat (I don't actually have a Minnesota Twins hat, although I have an Elizabethton Twins hat). But I was wearing a Twins shirt. It seems that none of the pictures I took of myself went low enough to display that...

Also for whatever it's worth, I saw two other Red Sox hats at the games.

Well said, Mr. Rhode. I didn't think about a covered versus uncovered head being a sign of respect for opposite genders. I just got a sudden (although somewhat nonsensical) picture of Erin in one of those wide-brimmed sun hats, like you'd see at a prestigious horse race, and trying to unpin it all before the anthem was over.

I think that may be the most charming picture or you on-screen to date -- the face your farther loves and loves to love!

Relaxation IS good for the soul of the creatures that we are...even when the tension of the game runs high.

wow.
which one is mr. rhode?

As he would put it... "Mr. Rhode was his father; you ought to call him Russ." Except that there are two Russ's here. My dad is not the Good Doctor.