they had been awaiting our arrival, the lights came on. The stadium looked like a spaceship descended from the heavens.
Did the Professor enjoy the game? Later, when Root and I spoke of that remarkable day, we were never sure. And there was always a part of us that regretted putting this good-natured old man through such an ordeal.
But those moments we shared, the sights and sounds of the game, haven't faded with the years. If anything, they seem brighter and more vivid as time goes by, indelibly etched in our minds. The cracked, uncomfortable seats, the egg salad sandwiches with too much mustard, the lights of a plane that cut across the sky above the stadium like a shooting star. We remember every detail, and when we talk about that night, we're able to conjure up and bring back the Professor, as if he were sitting right beside us.
Our favorite part was the Professor's crush on the girl who was selling drinks in the stands. The Tigers had just finished their half of the second inning, and Root, who had already eaten his sandwich, announced that he wanted some juice. I was about to flag down a vendor when the Professor stopped me with a quiet but emphatic "No." When I asked him what was wrong, he refused to answer, but when I started to wave to the next girl, he spoke up again. "No!" For some reason, he seemed to disapprove of Root having a juice.
"Just make do with the tea I brought from home," I told Root.
"I don't want that. It's bitter."
"Then I'll go get you some milk at the concession stand."
"I'm not a baby! And they don't sell milk here. At a baseball game, you're supposed to have juice in a big paper cup—that's the rule." It was typical of Root to have an ideal vision of how things were supposed to be. I turned back to the Professor.
"Don't you think we could let him have just one?"
His expression was still grave as he brought his mouth close to my ear and whispered, "Get it from that girl over there." He pointed to a young woman who was climbing the other aisle.
"Why?" I asked.
At first he refused to explain, but Root's pestering finally wore him down. "Because she's the prettiest," he said simply.
Indeed, the Professor had a good eye. She was by far the most beautiful girl, and she had the sweetest smile. Finally, the girl in question arrived at the row directly below ours, and the Professor called out to get her attention. The fact that his hand was shaking as he passed her the money or that his suit was covered with scraps of paper didn't seem to faze her, and she continued to smile pleasantly as she handed him the juice. Root had complained about how long it had taken to get his drink, but his mood improved when the Professor bought him popcorn, ice cream, and a second juice when the girl came by again. We were so busy scanning the stands for the pretty young vendor and buying treats for Root that we missed the Tigers taking the lead with four hits in the top of the third.
This unexpected distraction aside, the Professor was still a mathematician at heart. As he sat down and looked around at the stadium, the first words out his mouth were: "The diamond is 27.43 meters on each side." And when he noticed that his seat number was 714 and Root's was 715, he began to lecture again and completely forgot to sit down.
"The home run record Babe Ruth set in 1935 is 714. On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron broke that record, hitting his 715th off of Al Downing of the Dodgers. The product of 714 and 715 is equal to the product of the first seven prime numbers: 714 × 715 = 2 × 3 × 5 × 7 × 11 × 13 × 17 = 510510. And, the sum of the prime factors of 714 equals the sum of the prime factors of 715: 714 = 2 × 3 × 7 × 17; 715 = 5 × 11 × 13; 2 + 3 + 7 + 17 = 5 + 11 + 13 = 29. A pair of consecutive whole numbers with these properties is quite rare. There are only 26 such pairs up to 20,000. This one is the Ruth-Aaron pair. Just like prime numbers, they are more rare as the numbers get