Why I Love Baseball -- A Night At The Ballpark

I had a birthday recently, and one gift my family gave me was a promise to go to a game soon. The schedule for our local minor league team, the Round Rock Express (Astros AAA), wasn't cooperative for a few weeks, but we finally headed out on Monday night to see them take on the Las Vegas 51s.

Traffic, to our great surprise, was reasonable, even light.

At the gate, while I purchased general admission berm tickets, the kids partook of some pancake samples being distributed nearby. The pancakes were fine, but the syrup was one of those awful, maple-flavored, mostly corn syrup types. This is not surprising, it's much cheaper than real maple syrup, but I try to avoid high fructose corn syrup in the kids' diets as much as possible. Carson snorfled two pancakes, about 3" across, so that kept him full for a bit.

We set up camp near the left field bullpen (where the Express relievers hang out), and after an inning, Val and the kids headed to the center field Fun Zone while I got to watch a game. It's not the best vantage point, and there were squadrons of children all over the place, which always happens when large groups take in a game (and there's usually several of those every night). It was close for the first two and a half innings, but then the Express exploded for six runs, including a three-run triple by Andy Locke (that with just a bit more oomph, would have been a grand slam), and a home run by Juan Castro. I had set the end of the third as my get up and wander time, and this scoring bonanza kept me anchored longer than I had expected. But in a good way.

The third finally over, I headed over to the Fun Zone and quickly found Carson, taking turns in the tee batting cage and the pitching cage, though he was also dashing off to the moonwalk. Val was seated, enjoying some (relatively) quiet time, nearby. I was hungry and got a sausage, plus peanuts for Val to munch. She had bought the kids each an unlimited-use wristband for the Fun Zone, and they were making great use of them. Amalie tried the rock climbing tower several times, though never quite reached the bell.

After a bit, I continued wandering the park, clockwise, taking up a seat here or there for an inning. The Fun Zone closes after the seventh, so I headed back to help Val collect the kids. Carson was (finally) hungry, so he got chicken tenders, which he devoured -- he'd been going non-stop for about two hours. And then they both had ice cream.

Finally back to our blankets, we settled in to watch the end of the game. Express reliever Casey Daigle began warming up, and though he was too busy and focused to talk, I told Amalie that his wife was a really tall softball player, Jennie Finch.

Daigle went in to pitch the ninth, and nailed down the 9-6 win. We gathered up our few things and began walking out, but had to wait atop left field while the players (who come up a stairway in the left field corner) crossed to their locker rooms. I pointed out Daigle to Amalie when he came up -- he stepped near us, and said something to someone behind us. I turned and noted a very tall, athletic blonde, who was just turning around. The penny quickly dropped -- that had to be Finch! I told Amalie, we caught her up a moment later, and she gracefully spent a minute with Amie, who seemed a bit overwhelmed by one of the best women's softball players in the world. Amie did ask how tall she was, and Ms. Finch (Mrs. Daigle) told her -- 6' 1", same as me. She also mentioned that gold medals are much prettier than silver medals (she has both). Alas, I did not think to pull out my cell phone and get a picture of them together.

Out to the car at last, the kids amazingly stayed awake the entire trip home, but Amie went to bed eagerly and Carson didn't last much longer. I fell asleep on his floor soon after reading a book to him.

So that was my birthday ballgame, underwritten by my mom's gift, which was a check with instructions to go have some fun with her grandkids. We did. Thanks, dear family.

Game Box: Round Rock 9 - Las Vegas 6.