Then there’s the Face Game. I play this by keeping an eye on the faces of the spectators behind home plate. Some nights I’ll run a ten-point Nose-Picking Competition, which can be played solitaire or with a friend (you get the odd innings, your friend the even ones). Ten is a good number to play to in this game, I’ve found, but when playing Cell Phone, you have to play to at least twenty-one, because these days almost everyone has one of those annoying little puppies. (“Hi, hon, I’m at the ballpark…. What? Oh, not much, Rays are down by three…I hear people whispering ‘Dead team walking’ under their breath… it’s a little spooky… Bring home a quart of milk?… sure, okay, call you later… gotta pick my nose on national TV first… okay, love you too… bye.”) And last night—remember, I never lost the thread of the game during this, that’s the beauty of baseball—I had this wonderful idea for a story. What if a guy watches a lot of baseball games on TV, maybe because he’s a shut-in or an invalid (or maybe because he’s doing a book on the subject, poor schmuck), and one night he sees his best friend from childhood, who was killed in a car crash, sitting in one of the seats behind the backstop? Yow! And the kid is still ten! He never claps or cheers (never picks his nose or talks on his cell phone, for that matter), just sits there and watches the game…or maybe he’s watching the main character of the story, right through the TV. After that the protagonist sees him every night at every game, sometimes at Fenway, sometimes at Camden Yards, sometimes at the CreepyDome up in Toronto, but every time there are more people the poor freaked-out guy knew, sitting all around him: this guy’s dead friends and relatives, all sitting in the background at the ballpark. I could call the story “Spectators.” I think it’s a very nasty little idea.

Meanwhile, Derek Lowe goes for us tonight, and here is an interesting little factoid: the hapless Devil Rays are almost forty games into the baseballseason and haven’t yet won two games in a row. Lou Piniella must be finished with his liver and thinking of moving on to his kidneys. It’s a shame, but we’ve got a job to do here, and hopefully Dee-Lowe will do his part.

For the final game in Tampa it’s Lowe versus Victor Zambrano, a decent matchup, at least until they take the mound. Zambrano has a weird first, alternately walking and striking out hitters, finally getting Tek looking to leave the bases loaded. Lowe responds by giving up a single through the middle to former option QB Carl Crawford, then letting him steal second and third. With one out, the infield’s back, and another grounder scores him.