Brief Encounter

It's not often that it happens to me, but this morning I had a close encounter of the baseball fan kind here in Paris.

As I was sat in Starbucks waiting for my wife and daughters to come out of the cinema next door, I noticed a young kid and his dad walking towards me. From a distance I thought I recognised the logo on the kid's t-shirt, but I wasn't quite sure. As he got closer, I was pleased to note that my eyesight isn't yet completely shot to hell: I had indeed spotted a red 'C' with a bearcub inside.

As the two of them went by, I was able to see that this was definitely a genuine fan, as only a genuine fan would be sporting a #9 Juan Pierre jersey. He and his dad had almost gone by when the kid looked up and noticed my Red Sox t-shirt (Red Sox on the front, 20 / Youkilis on the back). He tugged at his dad's sleeve and pointed in my direction. They were clearly in a rush to get somewhere, so there was no long baseball conversation - just a nod and a knowing smile - but it was nice to feel for a couple of seconds that I wasn't completely alone in the baseball desert.