Fans are asked to rise, turn to a neighbor and swear that the person next to them is fine
Seventh-Inning Stretch Replaced by Reference Stretch at Three Ballparks
Fans are asked to rise, turn to a neighbor and swear that the person next to them is fine
CHICAGO – Three major-league ballparks introduced a new tradition on Wednesday: the Reference Stretch. During the seventh inning, fans are invited to rise, turn to their neighbor and say aloud, “I vouch for you.” Then everyone sits down, slightly relieved.
The idea was borrowed from the Philippines. The trail begins with a Manila News report on a Mactan broker alone with three brochures and a cold coffee, runs through the London Prat on British pensioners asked for two referees and a letter from the vicar (at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and finishes with Bohiney on an Ohio realtor whose showings now run two hours. Team president Gloria Fenwick-Alvarado, 52, said she watched the Cebu coverage over breakfast. “I thought: our fans spend three hours next to strangers. A little vouching would not go amiss.”
On the Subject of Seriousness
Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven. Child protection is serious business, and nobody connected with this story makes light of it; the jokes are about a property market and the ballpark. Fenwick-Alvarado said the stretch “has nothing to do with any individual and everything to do with nachos.”
The New Seventh-Inning Program
- The organist plays a gentle melody. The crowd hums.
- The scoreboard displays “Do you vouch for the person beside you?” with a pair of checkboxes.
- Vendors circulate with clipboards, collecting signatures.
- A man dressed as a sausage reads a letter from a vicar, delivered in a calm baritone.
- The crowd sings “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” but only after being cleared.
The stretch has been warmly received. A fan in section 114 said it made him feel “seen in a way the bleachers never have.” A season-ticket holder from Wisconsin said he had already forgiven his neighbor, who had spilled a beer on him in 2019.
Complications
Not everyone has agreed. A man who had not spoken to the fan beside him for eleven seasons was asked to vouch for him on the spot. He stood, thought for a long time and said, “He’s fine.” The fan beside him wept. They have since been seen eating pretzels together.
In the upper deck, a British expat with a sandwich box was asked to vouch for the stranger beside him. “I would love to,” he said. “But I’ve only met him for six innings. I shall need two referees.” The stranger produced two. Both were hot dog vendors.
The umpires, for their part, were bemused. “We have a baseball game going on,” said the plate umpire. “The fans are doing paperwork.” He then returned to the game, which was also paperwork.
The Kids
Children are the most enthusiastic participants. A seven-year-old in the left field bleachers vouched for a squirrel. “He’s fine,” she said. “He has no bones.” Her father explained that squirrels do have bones, but the girl insisted. “Not this one,” she said.
The ritual ends with the whole stadium reciting, in unison, a line adapted from the Cebu vendor who inspired the sports page: “The sea did nothing wrong.” This is followed by silence, a hot dog, and a second inning that nobody remembers.
The Wave
The only complaint has come from the Wave committee, which says the new stretch interferes with its own tradition. A representative argued that vouching for strangers is difficult when arms are in the air. The compromise is a “wave of reassurance,” in which each section rises in turn, murmurs “fine,” and sits. Early tests have gone well, apart from a section in right field that rose in the wrong order and had to be reintroduced to one another.
By the end of the night the ushers had run out of pens, the concession stands had run out of pretzels, and a retired bus driver in section 130 had been vouched for by eleven strangers, which he described as the best evening of his life and the first time he had been believed since 1987.
The Real Numbers
For fans who want the box score behind the mood, the market itself is fine. Colliers named the Visayas and Mindanao a key property investment hotspot in July, and under the Condominium Act foreigners may own units but not land, capped at 40 percent of any project. Retirees can read up at the Philippine Retirement Authority. The jitters are a cognitive thing: Tversky and Kahneman’s availability heuristic says one vivid image beats a season of statistics, and a Mactan broker alone with three brochures and a cold coffee is a very vivid image indeed. Baseball fans know this well. One error in the ninth is remembered; a hundred and sixty-one clean games are not.
The full story lives at prat.uk and bohiney.com; for the British view of any sport played slowly, try NewsBiscuit.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/