{"id":6297,"date":"2025-08-26T15:09:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6297"},"modified":"2025-08-26T15:09:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:09:43","slug":"crystal-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6297","title":{"rendered":"Crystal Ball"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I head into the living room at 6:20 pm. I take up the rocking chair. I warm up with some Phillies pregame. At 6:40 pm my dad comes in and takes up the armchair on my right. The game begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My schedule when visiting home is pretty open, but there are a few scheduled events. Dinner is at 5:30 every day, the house is more or less empty of young people by 8 am, and I am expected to be in the living room for each Phillies game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am fine with each of these rules \u2013 especially the game. Nobody else in the house enjoys baseball besides my dad and I, so game time is more or less quiet time. Each game time I arrive at my rocking chair like the at-heart octogenarian I am. I have my water and pretzels. My dad has a water and whatever kind of chocolate he found on his way in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baseball is one of the few visual media my dad and I can watch together without ending up in prison. His taste and mine has deviated greatly since I was four months old. My dad likes Korean pop dramas and I like Columbo. It was never going to work. But with baseball, we become the commentators nobody can hear. A thing for which I am enormously grateful.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We discuss actors, movies, books, lakes in Geneva, the good points and failings of each player. And hoagies. And when it\u2019s over, we mosey on with the rest of our day.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a five-day roadtrip, I return to the rocking chair. It\u2019s quiet. We\u2019re both a little under the weather. Then I get a lot under the weather. He adjourns to the kitchen, which is right next to the living room separated by a window with two shutters. Our banter continues, but it\u2019s louder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hey, nice play!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Are there any pretzels in there?!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days later. I am watching the game. Schwarber is up to bat. The count is 2\u20132. The crowd goes quiet. The sound of a clap comes from the kitchen. The pitcher throws a ball. 3\u20132. A kitchen table rattling under a hand slap. Schwarber strikes out. The next inning, Realmuto is down in the count 0\u20132 when a cheer comes from the kitchen. Three seconds later, Realmuto hits a homer into the upper deck.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not a crystal ball he\u2019s got; it\u2019s a TV that\u2019s three seconds ahead of mine. While this wouldn\u2019t have an effect on me in general \u2013 I don\u2019t care if Junwoo kisses Jiwoo under the eucalyptus tree before he meets Jiho near the enchanted forest of Gly-ho. But the excitement and enjoyment underlying baseball is sort of predicated on not knowing what is going to happen until it does. When you have the human spoiler alert watching the game twenty feet away, it sort of gives it away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I let him know about this and the struggle becomes clear instantly. You see, my dad can\u2019t keep a secret. He thinks he can, he says he can, but he cannot. This goes hand-in-hand with my dad\u2019s movie-watching habits. He will directly give away a movie ending \u2013 in the middle of a movie. \u2018No, it\u2019s not him, it\u2019s his sister who\u2019s the killer.\u2019 At the very least, he\u2019ll let you know he knows something. \u2018Just watch this. This is a great scene.\u2019 If he picks up a throw pillow, someone is about to get eviscerated onscreen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So to tell him not to give away the next play is a tough ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That evening, Bryce Harper is up and the bases are loaded. Harper\u2019s got a 2\u20132 count. The pitcher starts his windup. A groan from the kitchen. It\u2019s quickly followed by a strangled cheer. Harper strikes out. An inning later, the third baseman for the other team grounds to second. As the second baseman fields the ball, I hear my dad say \u2018Oh fucking God-yay!\u2019 The second baseman throws the ball into the stands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Did you see that?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these attempts to silence his radar, it\u2019s too hard for him. The game for me becomes a series of grunts, yells, table slaps, cheers, claps, and hurrahs. I find an old pair of bombardier headphones and affix them to my ears. This seems to do the trick. Then I remove them and it\u2019s still quiet. I head to the shuttered window and watch my dad bite his tongue to avoid broadcasting his disappointment in the last batter of the inning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fix comes when we put masks on. We talk through them and look like two guys playing birds in a movie. He pulls down his mask to take a bite of a popsicle. I fit a few pretzels under my mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I knew he was going to strike out.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah. What a jerk.\u2019  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I head into the living room at 6:20 pm. I take up the rocking chair. I warm up with some Phillies pregame. At 6:40 pm my dad comes in and takes up the armchair on my right. The game begins. My schedule when visiting home is pretty open, but there are a few scheduled events. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/John_William_Waterhouse_-_The_Crystal_Ball.jpg?fit=784%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1Dz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6299,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297\/revisions\/6299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}