An MLB sort of day...

It's a Saturday, but I set my alarm for this morning with not the slightest bit of resentment. There were two reasons for this: I didn't actually have to get up too early, and I was getting up so that I could go sing the American national anthem at the Taiwan MLB All-Star game.

Rachel, Brittany and I set out earlier than the others, in the hope of getting to see batting practice. We arrived at the stadium to discover, however, that it was cancelled. We further learned that we were the first of our group to get there, so it took a bit of cajoling to get in at all.

Once we (and by we, I mean Brittany and Rachel--I'm still utterly useless) talked one lady with an official pass into letting us in, she whisked us along the corridors behind the Taiwanese team's dugout, past multiple security guards and a barrier to a waiting area, where the dancers who were going to perform before us were eating lunch.

Meanwhile, their costumes were busy being creepy in the corner

And there we sat. For a good 45 minutes or so. We chatted, Brittany and Rachel listened to music on their iPods, I played sudoku on my phone. If it hadn't been for the numerous security personnel we passed on our way in, we would have been forging towards the MLB dugouts on the other side, but from what we could tell, they were letting NO one back there other than the players and staff. Shoot.

Eventually, the other Fulbrighters (Samia, Lydia, Emily, and Fonda) showed up, and we learned that the rest of the group had since arrived and were waiting in the press conference room. So we went there, and picked up our Kaohsiung American School shirts, since it had been decided that we should all match, despite the fact that we were NOT actually from KAS. We then got kicked out of the press conference room and headed back for the green room, from which we were promptly excised so that we could line up, a full hour early, in the non-air-conditioned hallway.

And that's when they began: the high school memories. And not the warm, fuzzy memories of fantastic jokes with friends. No, more like "OK guys, be SERIOUS from this point on!" "We have an extra person in row 4--everyone in row 4 raise your hands!" (a few seconds pass in which a few people didn't hear the speaker) "Come on, you guys!" "Put away the cameras and just stand still!" All direct quotes, and I could go on. The point being: I had forgotten how little respect high school students get, and how little they even deserve, in many cases.

I hadn't realized how used to getting treated like an adult I had become, and going backwards was less than pleasant--especially as it involved standing motionless in a crowded, hot hallway for an extended period of time, lest we wander off or somehow forget where we were supposed to stand. (Which, it should be noted, some of the high schoolers did, notwithstanding the fact that we weren't allowed to move.)

But I did manage to get some photos. As I told the nice older gentleman standing next to me who identified himself as a trialing spouse of one of the KAS teachers, and a Texan, I don't go to this school! (As it turned out, that was a necessary distinction to make: he guessed I was a senior in high school.)

So close and yet so far...

Standing and waiting and standing and waiting...

Eventually, we moved our lines down the hallway, and for a minute I was excited that we might be venturing into MLB area, but no such luck. No, we were just moving into the entryway near home plate, where we would be singing. We did pass a few Taiwanese players in the hallway, though--number 32 and number 6, if you know your players--but no luck on venturing into American territory. Instead, we still had a good 20 minutes of waiting ahead of us, but now we had to do it in an even more confined space, pressing four lines into the space that previously held two so as to allow people to pass.

On the fun side of things, the people passing us to get onto the field included one MLB player (missed who it was, just registered that he was white and in a baseball uniform), the 90- and 94-year-old Taiwanese ex-pro-baseball players who were going to throw the first pitches of the game, and the Washington Nationals' mascot. So that was cool.

Fonda wasn't in the ranks, so she got some good shots from the front of the queue 

There it is.

Mascot and the Taiwanese team!

Once we were good and sweaty, we finally filed onto the field for the big moment. We were standing on the 3rd base side of home plate, facing the audience, which looked pretty pitiful behind the plate but which was actually pretty full, considering the outfield seating pictured above and later shots I saw on TV of the rest of the stands.

Oh, and the MLB team was standing right behind us, maybe 15 feet away. Right behind us! Did I mention we were not allowed to turn around? Torturous. But, again, Fonda to the rescue with the pictures!

Then came the singing. IF, that is, you could call it that...

We were set up to fail, really. Though the KAS kids had practiced for a while at school, apparently, we combined forces with them just yesterday, at which point we got a grand total of two run-throughs. Then, because all things must be symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing here, we had to have 40 people; yesterday we had just 28 or so, so KAS scavenged among their students and staff to come up with the remainder. As a result, today we had roughly 12 people who had never practiced the song at all.

Then there were the electronic issues. They gave us two mikes, and were told to follow those who had the mikes, because they also had earpieces to hear where we actually were in the song, rather than listening to the slightly-delayed music radiating down to us from the stadium speakers. There were several problems with this: 1) there were 2 'leaders,' who were not even remotely synched with each other, 2) one of the earpieces wasn't functioning fully, 3) the only way we could follow the mic'd people was by following their mic'd voices, ie those coming over the stadium speakers. As a result, we had roughly 3 groups singing their own unique version at any given point in time. It was disastrous.

I have never understood so clearly why EVERY MUSICIAN EVER ALWAYS has earpieces in at all times, or even why, in smaller settings, a personal amp is not enough to create cohesion. If only we could all have earpieces, we might have been synched, and then things would have been fine--our singing was okay, it was just our inability to sing as a group which spelled our downfall.

Oh well. We'll try again tomorrow, and there's really nowhere to go but up, right?

After the singing, we filed back out, laughed at ourselves, and most of us headed home.  But first, of course, a picture.

Well, I've got to go now to set my alarm for tomorrow morning. After all, the second time's the charm, right? And who knows, maybe we'll be more successful then in finagling our way into meeting the MLB players. All problems aside, I still have no complaints whatsoever about getting to sing the national anthem at an MLB game here in Taiwan.