©2010 Katya Horner. All rights reserved. (Shot for Where Guestbook Houston.)
The Game. I love baseball. Everything about it. The pacing, the grand slams, the pitchers duels. Crash and Annie, Shoeless Joe, Wrigley Field. Extra innings, rain delays and double headers. It’s about history, both the league’s and my own.
For as long as I can remember, baseball has been part of my life. My afternoons with dad, my first dates with men who understood me, my laughter-filled moments with friends, my common ground with others. It’s been my March through October for over thirty years, and there’s something nice about that kind of reliability.
Baseball is a numbers game taking place in a sensation-driven world. It’s the .300 hitters in the ballparks with trains and mascots and “Let’s go, ‘Stros!” It’s the full count that doesn’t count at all to the sleeping four-year old, all decked out in team gear, who couldn’t quite make it past the sixth inning. It’s three strikes and four balls adding up to a seventh inning stretch with a kiss cam, a patriotic song and a quick run to the vendor for another beer. It’s hecklers and knuckle balls, hometown heroes and statistics. It’s all that and it’s co-branded with mom and apple pie – genius!
I chose The Game, taken while shooting a photo essay for Where Guestbook Houston, as #5 on The Ones I Like List of 2010 because I’m a baseball fan, an Astros fan, a Berkman fan and a fan of assignments that allow me to combine my passions – in this case, photography and baseball. It was a no-brainer and a “W” on my professional scorecard.
Now if I can just be hired to photograph the Foo Fighters in concert…