Date Night: Baseball

Dave and I try to attend one baseball game every year, but this summer, as we approached the Labor Day weekend, we realized that time was running short. (I still don't understand how the summer flew by so quickly; it feels like just yesterday we were discussing plans to go to a game with friends "sometime.")

We live about 15 minutes away from one of the local minor league teams, so I checked out their schedule and was pleasantly surprised to see that they were playing on both Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. Although Saturday's game would be colder, it won out because of the end-of-game fireworks.

We bought our $5 bleacher/lawn tickets, only to find out that there weren't any bleachers, only the steep lawn. Stink! We lasted through the national anthem before deciding walking around would be better than being pushed around by the large party next to us and the dozens of kids rolling down the hill and throwing errant pitches as they played catch with the squishy balls given out as souvenirs at the gate.

Our view from the cheap seats

After a few pitches on the field, my brilliant husband spotted the promised bleachers (3 whole rows of them) and tables and chairs by the Miller Party Deck behind left field. We headed there and watched the game until an employee asked us to leave at the beginning of the final inning so they could set up for the fireworks.


Our exit led to a pretzel and pop snack before we settled in to a couple of vacant seats behind home plate. Now we know to splurge the next time we go to a game! Our cheap seats were fine, but I couldn't believe how much I'd missed being out in left field!

Enjoying the "luxury" seats

Our team won. (Hooray!) And we celebrated with some of the best fireworks I've ever seen. (Really, there was one that looked like a hose, spraying sparks all over the outfield--and, yes, it was on purpose!)

It may have taken us all summer to catch a game, but I'm glad we got a chance to go. It was one of my favorite activities of the summer.