Baseball in Zanzibar

Just another quick posting, this time of a picture I snapped in the downstairs common room at the Flamingo Hotel in Stone Town.  There are dozens of books lining the walls, most left, doubtless, by folks passing through (I should really try and come up with a list of the books I've left in hostels and hotels over the years - that would be an interesting assignment or novel).  There's also a TV, which is on all day long, usually with a soccer game or an Egyptian soap opera.  When Steve and I were in Zanzibar in May there was actually a baseball game.  Now, I don't watch much baseball anymore, for any number of reasons, some personal and some systemic, but I still have a childlike love of the game, and it gave me joy to sit down on the faded, dilapidated couch in Zanzibar and watch a little bit of the game.  It reminded me of the watching baseball in other foreign countries and how it made me feel connected to home.  When I taught in India I skived off half a day once so that I could get up early and watch the All-Star Game, a game I never watch at home, but it was the only game that ESPN India was showing that summer.  I remember being driven to fits of rage in Abu Dhabi because the local sports channel kept cutting off the end of games (soft of an Emirati equivalent of the infamous Heidi football game).  It was that exciting world series between Texas and St. Louis where the Rangers kept getting to within one strike of winning the championship then the Cardinals wold hit a home run.  Well, sadly, I missed most of that drama because the local channel switched over to a previously scheduled lightweight boxing match.

Recently, in response to the Jemele Hill situation, and in support of her, I tweeted: "I am a professor and a lover of baseball and jazz, and I'm also calling Trump a White Supremacist."  Beyond an age where we are forced to routinely call the President of the United States a White Supremacist, mainly because he is a White Supremacist, it's interesting that I naturally identified myself in regards to baseball.