The Shuckers

 Los Angeles, California

I think it just a bit odd that two of my friends once teased me about my penchant for talking to people I don't know. I don't walk up to strangers on the street. But when I am doing business with someone, or even speaking to someone providing customer service, I often engage in conversation. As I think back, both of my parents did this. My mom didn't so much engage, as talk at people. She liked to talk but wasn't so much interested in what the other person had to say so much as what she wanted to tell them. My dad was more like a raconteur. He was a great storyteller, and I often think my interest in stories and other people's personal stories, came from him. Dad was also the parent who read me bedtime stories. His taste ran more towards Kipling than Seuss, and forget about reading me stories about princesses or young commoners who lived happily ever after with any prince or princess charming. And... maybe that was a good thing?

But back to this story. I find it much odder, that one of my aforementioned friends thought it was weird? Inappropriate? Or at least strange enough to comment on, that I had talked to the bartender when we were having dinner together at the bar in a hotel. Huh. Huh? I guess she never watched Cheers. I often find bartenders interesting. In fact, it was a bartender who introduced us to Sandra and John! And besides serendipitous introductions, if you end up talking about liquor, bartenders have been known to provide teaser tastes from behind the bar. I'm truly not in it for this benefit. I'm in it for the conversation. Interested in the stories. But if that comes with a half-shot of something I've not sampled before, so much the better.

Maybe most people aren't interested, but I am always curious to know where the disembodied voice on the other end of a customer service call is located. I always ask. If they are in the states, and there is a major league baseball team nearby, I often ask them about their team. It is surprising that, while there is a lot of talk about loss of interest, I encounter a lot of MLB fans who support their local or nearby team and work in customer service. 

A few months back, I needed to call the social security office. At the end of the call I asked if, since this was a government agency, the representative was allowed to tell me where she was located. I'm in Louisiana, ma'am. I responded that, in that case, she didn't have a baseball team, right? Oh yes we do, ma'am. We have the Biloxi Shuckers.

Sandra, namesake of this blog (and the best person I have ever known), lived six hours away from me, but we saw each other four or five times during the course of each year. When we saw Sandra and John in the summer, usually at their home in Tahoe, I would always ask about their local baseball team, the Sacramento River Cats. Except, I called them the River Rats. Much to John's dismay, Sandra began calling them The Rats as well.

I feel some regret that I don't have friends who support the Shuckers. It's such a great name for a team. And can you imagine what opposing teams' fans can do with hollering' that name? Most major league teams don't have very clever names. While I sortakinda hate the team, the Padres name is clever. It is also the name the Carmel High School carries for its teams. A while back, somebody got their shorts in a twist over this and the name's association with Saint Serra. History tells us of unconscionableness and even cruelty in our past. But the past of California is indelibly entwined with the California Missions Trail. That's why we studied the Missions, as part of California history, in elementary school, and even made those sugar cube replicas. I would hate to see the historical importance of the Missions diminished. And would hate to hear that the name of that school's team, with its campus walking-distance from the beautiful Carmel Mission Basilica, be changed to the Carmel Guardians.

On the other hand, the Atlanta Braves should consider getting rid of that chant. Not because it's demeaning, though I understand it is, but because it is alarmingly annoying. I do understand the indigenous peoples' complaint about all of this. When you watch old westerns, there is the same cringe factor that you feel at aspects of Gone With the Wind. But, erasure isn't necessarily a good thing. In my ridiculously unimportant opinion, perspective is the better route.

Luckily, I don't think the Shuckers are going to offend anyone. Yeah, not so fast. Maybe they are. There seems to be stirrings in the animal rights population regarding sea creatures. Certainly the Shuckers are disregarding the feelings of those mollusks who are being shucked, right? Oh, good grief, Charlie Brown! I truly hope for a time and place when we are not all so thin-skinned. Otherwise, I might have to go back to calling the Sacto team Cats, after all. And, I think the River Rats is a much better name. At least until someone steps in to defend the rights of rodents to not have their name so frivolously utilized. That wave may very well be coming at us, so be prepared to duck! Oops, not meaning insensitivity to web-footed birds. I find them delicious.