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Friday, July 8, 2011

Take Us Out to the Ball Game

Wow. There are so many things to write about! I’ll start with the most recent one. Last night we took the boys to their second major league baseball game this season. For a girl who grew up in Idaho with the closest MLB team being in Seattle, a days’ drive across the entire expanse of nothingness beautiful open country that is eastern and central Washington State, our proximity to professional baseball to put it mildly, makes me smile a lot.  

We can decide in the morning or early afternoon to go to the game that evening and hop in the car when Brian gets home from work and be in downtown DC walking in the gates as the first pitch is fired across home plate. Goose bumps. 


When I was young there were two ways to experience a game:

1. Drive to Seattle for the weekend, stay with relatives or in a hotel and go to the game (getting there when the gates opened for autographs and batting practice). The next day we would do something like walk downtown by the Space Needle, Pike Street Market, the first Starbucks, marvel at buses with Ken Griffey Jr. on the sides of them, and buy a souvenir.

OR

2. Leave at some ungodly hour of the morning like 5am, packed to the brim with carrot sticks, sandwiches, and fruit, and drive basically nonstop to the Kingdome (rest in peace) in time for batting practice and dinner and then drive home after the game and arrive at 4am. 

The first was the more pleasant experience, the second the more exciting.

Anyway, the Nationals are nowhere near as good as the Mariners were in the mid 90s, (1995 ALCS!!) but they have been making other teams in the NL East shake in their cleats winning more games this past month, have promising young players, a beautiful new park, and they are drawing some
fans even in the sticky weather.

I am so happy that my boys love baseball, even as 2 year-olds. They watch it on TV, they play it, they love to read books about it, and they do very well at the games. They watch the game and have their own little sayings. When a batter takes a pitch Clark says, “Don’t like it,” and when someone hits the ball he says, “Baseball player hit the ball SO far!” Cal says “Mans hit the baseball far!” When they aren’t watching the game they are watching the big screen, eating cracker jacks, flirting with the adoring women around them, drinking from their juice boxes, or pestering the guy below us to look at the pictures on his phone.


Last night we left early…it was a long game that that Nationals would really rather not talk about. When we left our seats it was 8-0 Nationals on top. When we walked out the gate of the park it was 8-6. When we got in the car and turned on the radio it was tied at 8. When we got home the Cubs won 10-9. On the upside, we saw the right part of the game and it seemed more like an American League game than a National League game with all that offense.

It is such fun to be able to give my boys these experiences. I sure hope they don't outgrow liking baseball.

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