Some women
collect shoes.
I collect stadiums.

Thirty of them, scattered across the country. Each one with its own air, its own crowd, its own strange little mythology.

I’ve always loved the moment just before the first pitch. The sun slipping behind the stands. Cold drinks sweating on the railing. The low hum of a crowd settling into anticipation.

Baseball has a kind of romance to it. It’s slow, patient, full of small glances and long pauses before anything dramatic happens.

Every season I cross a few more stadiums off the list. Sometimes I go alone. Sometimes a man joins me — the kind of man who understands that an evening like that shouldn’t be rushed.

A drink before the game. A few innings spent laughing quietly over nothing in particular. And afterward, when the stadium empties and the city is still warm with energy, we disappear somewhere better suited to finishing the night properly.