Take Me Out to the Ballgame...
... for preferably less than nine innings!!
I grew up in a dysfunctionally obsessed baseball family so as an adult I was destined to either LOVE baseball like most of my family did/ does or not care to have much to do with it. I've definitely veered in the latter direction. The Dayton Dragons (Cincinnati Reds Single A club) came to Dayton in the year 2000, the same year that Jacob was born. Donnie's law firm bought season tickets right behind home plate and the firm's owners would divvy up games to partners and associates. When Jacob and Abby were little, we dutifully took them to a few games (that we received complimentary tickets to from the firm) each year. As they got older their/ our interest waned and driving to Dayton to watch young hopeful guys make their mark to make it up to the big league seemed less and less appealing. In the past few years, Donnie has opted out of receiving tickets since we aren't that enthused about going; he'd rather a family that was really into baseball get to enjoy the good seats that the firm's tickets provided.
And so after a several year hiatus from seeing the young men in green and white play ball, Alyssa and I found ourselves at the ball park Wednesday evening. Alyssa received four tickets to a Dragon's game free from school. Her teacher received several sets of four tickets and she was to award them to students. She could have given them to students based on merit as an award or she could randomly pick students. She chose to randomly pick students and Alyssa was one of the "lucky" ones chosen :). Alyssa was super excited that she "won" the tickets and begged for me to take her. The begging means she knows we aren't baseball fans and that going to a baseball game probably wasn't something that sounded appealing to Donnie or me. Asking me as opposed to asking Donnie meant she knew that after Donnie worked a full day in downtown Dayton, the last thing he want to do after driving home from work was driving back to downtown Dayton for a minor league baseball game!!
We brought Alyssa's best friend Avery to the game. Avery's family is quite a bit more baseball engaged family than we are: her brother plays on a travelling baseball team and her dad takes her to at least one Reds game and a few Dragons games a season.
The forecast on Wednesday called for a 40% chance of storms the evening of the game. That chance increased dramatically almost as soon as we arrived at the ball park. The wind picked up right away and the day, which had been hot and in the mid 80's, quickly turned cooler with the wind. The rain did come, thankfully, and cut our baseball trip short. Alyssa was not into the game at all (the food was a whole different story :)). When the Lansing Lugnuts scored three runs before the first out in the top of the first, well, it looked like we would be sitting in the grass (the free tickets were LAWN SEATS- grrr) for quite some time. The rain was as nice an ending to the evening as I could have hoped for. And, really, Alyssa had a great time- spending time with her friend, eating Dipping Dots and popcorn- there was little need to prolong the experience!!
Here is the first picture that I took- I took it primarily to serve as a pictorial reminder of where I parked my car. The car was parked just behind the brick building in the forefront. The road was more like an alley (ergo the dumpster that's visible). When we got out of the car Alyssa remarked that it looked like we were in the same place where Batman's parents were murdered in the movie Batman.
The parking spot (such as it was) was almost literally across the street from the Dragon's stadium (which is why I parked there). I may have used the slightly skivvy nature of our parking spot as an additional reason to leave the game when we did. I mean, when we left the game, it was raining lightly but not hard. I told the girls that we should probably leave since it was raining and if we left then, we'd return to our parking spot when it was still light out. The girls heartily agreed that it was a good idea to get back to our parking alley before darkness fell!!
We just had to cross one street from our parking spot to get to the stadium, but the particular entrance was a side entrance and not the main one to the stadium. There were still large baseballs for photo ops but the entrance was not as neat as the main one. Here the girls pose for me.
We nabbed our lawn "seats." There are no assigned seats in the lawn area so you just take what you get (and hope no one large/ obnoxious/ fussy/ drunk sits in front of you).
Cuties!!
This was one view from our lawn area
A close up
Dipping Dots purchased and consumed before the game began :)
Oh dear! The first inning ended up 4-0. It could have been worse!!
When the temperature started to drop, the girls tried to roll themselves into the blanket in an effort to wrap it around themselves. My ideal solution to the problem? Leave the stadium :)
It was sprinkling here but the girls kept the main thing the main thing- keeping the popcorn dry
On our way out...
I grew up in a dysfunctionally obsessed baseball family so as an adult I was destined to either LOVE baseball like most of my family did/ does or not care to have much to do with it. I've definitely veered in the latter direction. The Dayton Dragons (Cincinnati Reds Single A club) came to Dayton in the year 2000, the same year that Jacob was born. Donnie's law firm bought season tickets right behind home plate and the firm's owners would divvy up games to partners and associates. When Jacob and Abby were little, we dutifully took them to a few games (that we received complimentary tickets to from the firm) each year. As they got older their/ our interest waned and driving to Dayton to watch young hopeful guys make their mark to make it up to the big league seemed less and less appealing. In the past few years, Donnie has opted out of receiving tickets since we aren't that enthused about going; he'd rather a family that was really into baseball get to enjoy the good seats that the firm's tickets provided.
And so after a several year hiatus from seeing the young men in green and white play ball, Alyssa and I found ourselves at the ball park Wednesday evening. Alyssa received four tickets to a Dragon's game free from school. Her teacher received several sets of four tickets and she was to award them to students. She could have given them to students based on merit as an award or she could randomly pick students. She chose to randomly pick students and Alyssa was one of the "lucky" ones chosen :). Alyssa was super excited that she "won" the tickets and begged for me to take her. The begging means she knows we aren't baseball fans and that going to a baseball game probably wasn't something that sounded appealing to Donnie or me. Asking me as opposed to asking Donnie meant she knew that after Donnie worked a full day in downtown Dayton, the last thing he want to do after driving home from work was driving back to downtown Dayton for a minor league baseball game!!
We brought Alyssa's best friend Avery to the game. Avery's family is quite a bit more baseball engaged family than we are: her brother plays on a travelling baseball team and her dad takes her to at least one Reds game and a few Dragons games a season.
The forecast on Wednesday called for a 40% chance of storms the evening of the game. That chance increased dramatically almost as soon as we arrived at the ball park. The wind picked up right away and the day, which had been hot and in the mid 80's, quickly turned cooler with the wind. The rain did come, thankfully, and cut our baseball trip short. Alyssa was not into the game at all (the food was a whole different story :)). When the Lansing Lugnuts scored three runs before the first out in the top of the first, well, it looked like we would be sitting in the grass (the free tickets were LAWN SEATS- grrr) for quite some time. The rain was as nice an ending to the evening as I could have hoped for. And, really, Alyssa had a great time- spending time with her friend, eating Dipping Dots and popcorn- there was little need to prolong the experience!!
Here is the first picture that I took- I took it primarily to serve as a pictorial reminder of where I parked my car. The car was parked just behind the brick building in the forefront. The road was more like an alley (ergo the dumpster that's visible). When we got out of the car Alyssa remarked that it looked like we were in the same place where Batman's parents were murdered in the movie Batman.
The parking spot (such as it was) was almost literally across the street from the Dragon's stadium (which is why I parked there). I may have used the slightly skivvy nature of our parking spot as an additional reason to leave the game when we did. I mean, when we left the game, it was raining lightly but not hard. I told the girls that we should probably leave since it was raining and if we left then, we'd return to our parking spot when it was still light out. The girls heartily agreed that it was a good idea to get back to our parking alley before darkness fell!!
We just had to cross one street from our parking spot to get to the stadium, but the particular entrance was a side entrance and not the main one to the stadium. There were still large baseballs for photo ops but the entrance was not as neat as the main one. Here the girls pose for me.
We nabbed our lawn "seats." There are no assigned seats in the lawn area so you just take what you get (and hope no one large/ obnoxious/ fussy/ drunk sits in front of you).
Cuties!!
This was one view from our lawn area
A close up
Dipping Dots purchased and consumed before the game began :)
Oh dear! The first inning ended up 4-0. It could have been worse!!
When the temperature started to drop, the girls tried to roll themselves into the blanket in an effort to wrap it around themselves. My ideal solution to the problem? Leave the stadium :)
Comments
Post a Comment