Baseball Frank

Generally speaking, I would never be a member of any club that would have me as a member, even if that club included Groucho Marx. I am proud, however, to pronounce my affiliation with #OaklandUndivided.  This was the crew that was responsible for moving the number of connected households in our fair city from twelve percent two years ago to ninety-eight. In response to the stark reality of the Digital Divide, a group of like-minded individuals came together to create this organization that put computers and Internet access into the hands of those who desperately needed it in the early hours of the COVID shutdown, and the advent of online school. I would love to tell you that I was one of those originators, but I definitely served on the front lines, distributing and supporting Chromebooks and hotspots delivered to the families at our school. At the end of last May, one hundred percent of the students at our school had the devices they needed. 

And that felt good. 

So good, in fact, that when the powers that be invited me to come to a celebration of our accomplishments with #OaklandUndivided, I got in line. As mentioned here a number of times over the years, I am an easy touch when it comes to a free T-shirt. Go ahead and add a pair of baseball tickets to that and I am waiting in line. Which is where I was this past Monday evening, outside the Oakland Athletics' stadium, assembling with a bunch of other computer nerds and civic-minded types, looking for our swag. We were asked to wear our shirts, take a slew of photos, and then assemble at security so that we could find our way to our Undivided section for pizza, sodas, and baseball. 

Which is where things started to slide sideways. The Monday evening security at the stadium was not prepared for a hundred or more of us to come pouring through at once. Attendance over this past season has been down, and a Monday evening game late in the season was not expected to draw much of a crowd. Which didn't mean that we could just waltz in on our good intentions. We had to be detected for metal and have our swag bags searched before we could walk up the stairs into the stadium. When we reached our seats, we were stopped again, since they don't let just anyone into the Hero Deck. So we waited while wristbands were handed out. Until they ran out of those, and then a conversation ensued between the #OU folks and the A's security team. Finally, it was declared that all of those who were wearing their nice new blue T-shirts would have free access to the section, and we filed in. We looked out upon all the empty seats and wondered why it was necessary to have such airtight restrictions on seating on this particular evening. At this point, we discovered that getting that pizza and soft drink would be another line, but since we had been asked to be in our seats to have our Jumbotron moment, we waited until a fourth grader in his matching blue shirt threw out the first pitch. And I felt proud. Then it was time to get in line for food. In those intervening moments, they had run out. All they had left were some cans of diet Seven-Up. Which I graciously accepted with the promise of "more pizza" soon.

No more pizza came. My wife and I ended up buying a bag of peanuts to hold us over. Then a couple hot dogs and some Cracker Jacks. Somewhere around the sixth inning, with the home team trailing by three runs, we began to wonder if we had enough of the festival of congratulation. We had fun. We enjoyed the recognition, but it was a school night. I was getting up early the next morning to go and do many of the same things for which I was being lauded that evening. 

I was tired, and a little hungry, but I was happy. I had been recognized. I was proud of our efforts. Maybe next time we'll put the same energy into organizing the baseball outing as we did with handing out computers.