CITY SMART: How to thrive in the urban environment of Southern California. : Zoning Out at the Ol’ Ballgame

My throat crackles. My hands ache. A flare of heartburn nudges up my gullet. And I’m stuck in a whopping traffic jam.

What bliss.

I’ve just spent another evening on the hard plastic seats of Dodger Stadium.

I can tell it’s been a terrific night because even the snarl of cars and the threat of a Pepto-Bismol night can’t stop me from singing -- horrendously off-key -- “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Dodger Stadium does that to me.

Planted on a $9 seat, sharing lukewarm soda with my fiance, I shrug off my workaday worries as I cheer and jeer in time with 30,000 strangers. After an inning or two, I quit fretting about the heap of laundry blocking my closet door. I stop wondering whether I fed my cats. I drift into game mode: relaxed and lazy, hollering just enough to stay alert.

My mind slips languidly from one topic to the next. I smile as the batboy, chubby and hopeful, trots out to pluck a stray napkin from the field with professional flair. I laugh at the third base coach, who pats his arm and tugs his cap compulsively, like some crazy windup toy.

A nudge from my fiance, John, brings me back. He’s brought me a mustard-smeared pretzel and a plastic Dodger’s helmet packed with frozen yogurt. We eat. And gaze, entranced, as the sunset puffs crimson and gold into high evening clouds. Darkness gulps up the palm trees and the parking lot. The world shrinks to a patch of green.

Far below, players smash the ball, muff throws and snag pop-ups. A called third strike draws impassioned boos from the crowd. But our mock outrage can’t last. Not with an usher flipping a pack of peanuts our way. Not with the organist belting out the prelude to “Charge!”

So we turn our attention to the muscular young Dodger at the plate. We remind him, with stomping feet and clapping hands, that we have placed our hopes on him. A home run would be sweet. A double would be fine, too. Heck, we’re feeling generous; we’ll even take a walk.

He strikes out.

John and I groan along with the crowd. But we’re grinning, too. We’re having too much fun to stay upset.

A few aisles ahead of us, a little boy wiggles gleefully, booing and cheering on his dad’s cues. Behind us, a row of beer-guzzling collegiates razz the pitcher. A few seats over, two elderly women snacking on foil-wrapped sandwiches check their programs. The game draws us all together. I am glad.

On this particular evening, the Dodgers lose.

Still, I leave the stadium singing. How could I not?