The identities in the following story have been withheld to protect the innocent.
A dashing, well dressed, young professional enters the café section of a local Jones & Royal book store. Sporting close-cropped hair and a butt-chin like Tom Brady while dressed in crisp pants, shirt, necktie, and dark blazer, he carries a satchel, most likely in order to work over his lunch break. After purchasing a venti Americano, he sits down and brings a laptop computer out of the satchel.
Even though it is lunch hour in the typically slow week in the world between Christmas and New Year's, the man seems a bit uneasy about something. Does he intend to work on something he would prefer to keep private from other cafe patrons? Is he under a deadline? He situates himself in a corner of the café so that no one can see the screen of the laptop (there is one person nearby, but he is dozing at his table with a self-help book entitled "No More Sleepless Nights" in front of him). Once the desktop appears on the computer, he begins to direct the mouse, occasionally clicking. He keeps to himself, though every so often his face will take on either a countenance of displeasure or satisfaction.
Suddenly, the man is startled by the voice of another man, standing above him, “Hey! You’ve got Diamond Mind Baseball!” The first man, we’ll call him “T.R.”, gets a sheepish look, and before he can stutter a reply, the second man sits down. “Mind if I take a seat for a second,” without waiting for a reply.
The second man is a large and stocky baby boomer. He is much larger, bearded, and probably twenty-five years T.R.'s senior. He presses T.R. for more information, "Is that version 9? Are you in a league?" Gradually, T.R. lets his guard down as he realizes that his clandestine game-playing has been discovered and this man seems to be a baseball fanatic, just like T.R.
Baseball fanatics are not like Mohicans or morally untainted politicians, but they are certainly a dwindling lot in a world of fast paced instant gratification. It's a sport to be taken in slowly, digesting the nuances and strategy, each of which can combine to cause a climax at any point in the game. The two discussed Diamond-Mind and other simulation baseball games for a few minutes; such games are ways for fanatics to recreate their own little scenarios of nuance and strateegery without having to wait for the next day's game -- or worse yet -- winter to pass.
Eventually, the second man departed. T.R. returned to his game with a smile, assured he wasn't the only baseball geek in the world.
Any resemblance of the above story to real persons living or dead, locales, or institutions is purely coincidental [or because I don't lie very well].
