A Paradox Grows in Beloit

A scene similar to, if not precisely the same as, the one accounted for below.

In the main/only concourse of Beloit’s Pohlman Field, minutes before the first pitch of a Midwest League game between the hometown Snappers and West Michigan Whitecaps, one encounters a group of anxious-looking men holding binders full of Bowman Chrome baseball cards. They’re approaching the Beloit and West Michigan players as they (i.e. those same players) make their way from Pohlman’s rather improvised locker rooms to its only-slightly-less improvised dugouts. They’re asking, with a sense of urgency, for the players (who are, in every case, younger than the men asking) to sign the cards in the binders.

Passing by and through the scene, one thinks, “This is behavior unbecoming of an adult man.”

Simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, one envies the sense of purpose exhibited by those same autograph-seekers.

Image stolen shameless and without same from Ballparks of the Midwest.