Last week during my trip to Cleveland, we took a group of client resources who were in from all over the world to an Indians game. This was the first experience with baseball for many of them, and it was fun to help them understand the game…for a minute.
I never realized how ridiculously convoluted the game is until I had to explain the rules to someone from the UK or Australia. It took several innings for them to understand that a foul ball is a strike until the third one, in which case it’s neither a ball nor a strike. One asked me, “So, this can just go on forever?” Yes, so go get me another beer.
We shuffled seats throughout the game to socialize, and I ended up next to a Hungarian who had never watched a baseball game. As we were talking, one of the Rangers stole second base.
Hungarian: Why did he just go to second? That guy didn’t hit the ball. Me: Because he stole the base. Hungarian: Stole it? Like, he took it? Me: Yeah. He sort of…snuck. Hungarian: So, he cheated? Me: Well, yeah. But it’s allowed, so it’s not really cheating. Hungarian: Hm. I see. This game is very corrupt.
By the end of the game, I was exhausted. I think our visitors enjoyed their first game. If not, I know they at least enjoyed all the fried food.
hunnerwoof 
I’m from here and you probably would have had to do just as much explaining if I’d been sitting next to you. Except we’d probably give up and just drink beer and smacktalk. 🙂