Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Summer time and the ball park.  Buy me some peanuts and popcorn.  We spent a fabulous evening downtown at Victory Field this week.  The girls were beyond excited to eat cheese covered pretzels for dinner and see their cousin pitch for the visiting team.  Not necessarily in that order, ok fine, in that order.

Right, how many 5 year olds can say that their very first baseball game was spent watching their first cousin who is actually a major league pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, but happens to be doing a short stint re-hab'ing an arm on the farm team this summer as the starting pitcher?  Well, Olivia can.   

 

Does she look more interested in the spoon dipped into the lemon squeezee sitting next to my friend Leanne, who was an unending source of ballpark peanuts?  That would be an optical illusion.  Apparently she gets the sugar frenzeed obsession from her sister.  Really, they were studying the finer points of baseball.  Really.

Here's our guy.  Kevin Slowey.  Yes, he was pretty cool about tolerating the crazy lady yelling at him while he was warming up, "Hey, Kevin It's Auntie Perrin."  I'm sure that scored him cool points in the dugout. 

And then it was down to business. 

Not to be all star struck and all, but gees, seeing a kid with YOUR last name printed on the back of his shirt commanding the mound, well it was the bees knees. 

These guys come out and rake the dirt at intermission.  Facinating.  I like the way their shirts match.  

I snuck down from our upper deck section during the 5th inning.  With my camera.  If anyone would have asked me where I really belonged I was prepared to tell them all about the fact that I was related to the pitcher.  And, then I was prepared to probably receive free popcorn or have someone ask for my autograph.  No one questioned my lower level better seat existence.  Go figure.  The thrill was gone in 1 inning and I went back upstairs to check on these guys.  

Ava and our dear friend and neighbor, B.  Sometimes they act like they don't like each other.  But they do.  But not in a weird way, they are only 9 1/2 and 10.  When they were three, B wanted to marry Ava.  He was going to take her to McDonalds for the reception. Can you imagine quarter pounders for everyone before dancing?  If B ever marries Ava, he and I will have to talk about proper wedding receptions.  

More with the MY last name on HIS shirt.  That'll never get old. 

One last shot of the ballpark.  The Indians won, in case you weren't streaming it on your computer...like the Muffin Man who was on a business trip, in Baltimore missing the whole darn thing in live action.  I was rooting for the visitors, for obvious reasons.  I was sort of like the little guy in the School House Rock video, "Hooray, I'm for the other team."  This is probably why I'm so popular wherever I go.