Bottom of the Fourth
He watched his daughter pitch through a screen the size of his hand.
Last spring a fellow I'll call Teddy came into the hall carrying his daughter's softball team photo in his wallet and the look of a man who had missed something. He was thirty-eight. He told me about the bottom of the fourth.
His girl was pitching, her first time in the circle. Teddy sat in the bleachers with his phone, because the app let him bet on anything, and a pro game was running across the country. Between pitches he placed a wager. Then another, because the app flashed an offer for the very next play, and the very next play was always now.
She struck out the side. He looked up in time to see the other parents on their feet and his daughter searching the bleachers for him. He was looking at a screen. Kids learn where your attention lives by watching where your face points.
I told him what I tell everyone. In my day you had to drive to a place, find a man, and hand over cash. Every step was a chance to change your mind. Wanting and doing used to be a long hallway. Now the hallway is gone, and the whole trip is the width of a thumb.
Teddy could not get the inning back. But he told me he had started leaving the phone in the glove box on game days, and his wife was holding the card. He called it a small door he had shut. I called it putting the hallway back.
I will not tell you what to do with your own phone. I will only say that when a screen is getting more of you than the people sitting beside you, that is worth noticing. If you want to talk it through with someone, the National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-MY-RESET.
Watch the girl, not the screen.
Sal
Betting apps shrink the distance between wanting and doing to the width of a thumb, which removes the pause where people used to change their minds. Putting some distance back, and keeping your attention on the people in front of you, protects both money and relationships.