Slide, Charlie Brown, slide!

What little I know about baseball has been learnt almost exclusively from Peanuts cartoons. This still holds true tonight after my first actual experience of a 'ball game' at the Joe (the Joseph L. Bruno stadium near Troy).

What a weird experience. Every ten minutes a rabbit in a car would drive round the stadium throwing t-shirts into the crowd, or Uncle Sam would start a Mexican wave, or three hotdogs would race each other on mopeds. A glee club led us in a chorus of 'God Bless America', followed by 'Take me Out to the Ball Game'. The tannoy blasted out clapping chants and multiple references to a 'famous' Christopher Walken/cow bells sketch and odd snatches of the theme from Zorba the Greek. There was snack food a-plenty, including Santa-sized sacks of popcorn. Oh, and there was a game being played out on the field, but no-one paid much attention to that. Nice knickerbockers, though.

In the very-nearly-a-year we've been here I have never felt so foreign. Not unpleasantly so, but I don't think I've been in an environment here before where absolutely none of the cultural references had any resonance for me at all. Especially the cow bell related ones.

The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly 'Li'l Anthony', a kid about the size of our Boy who stood up and belted out 'New York, New York', note perfect, and left the stadium slack-jawed with admiration. America's got talent!

There were fireworks at the end, and I must admit it was very enjoyable to be watching them on a balmy night for a change instead of in winter woollies and a persistent November drizzle. That's a cultural shift I am prepared to make.