The Ball Game

This was my photo yesterday on my SC blog.
It's 7-year-old Nicholas in his favorite position, he says.

Now look at last Thursday's game when we took him to see the Atlanta Braves play against the NY Mets.
In all my years of watching baseball, I had never noticed the catchers putting their right hand behind their back...for safety. That right hand is their most precious commodity. So when I saw Nicholas doing it, I melted!

Okay, then. I'm getting ahead of myself! Like all the games we attend, we go early and watch the prelims. It's part of the building excitement, you know.




It always tickles me to death to see how many guys it takes to hose down the bases. Eleven. I guess that water hose is really heavy!





The hotties cheerleaders come around to shoot out their freebies, of course. Reward for coming early.





And everyone is in it for the show, even if the show is watching Nicholas.

Don't forget the cotton candy!
Well, it's not that we forgot it this time but I still can't believe we didn't get it this time. What's wrong with us!

Why the field prep fascinates me like it does is beyond me but it does. I'll just leave it at that!

And watching our favorite players warm up is almost as exciting as the game itself. It's the whole thing, you know, from beginning to end.

The 7th-inning stretch was a hoot, watching Delta strut its stuff in a Mini-cooper. How cool is that!




Then, as the shadows lengthen and the sun goes down, now you're talking. This is Turner Field, the Home of the Braves!




And everywhere you look, there is team spirit. This isn't Nicholas but sometimes he looks like this himself.

The long and the short of it is we're Braves' fans!
Take me out to the ball game any time you want. We love it.

It helps, of course when we win the game.
4 - 2

**********

Tomorrow we fly to Hawaii! YAAAAY. With a bunch of finagling, frequent-flier miles, special waivers and very few dollars, Donica was able to get the 3 of us in Business Class the entire way, coming and going on direct routes from Atlanta to Honolulu. 9.5 hours going; 8.5 hours coming back. Kinda like flying back-n-forth to Europe. Now that's flying. We'll be 6 hours behind Atlanta time, 12 hours behind AMS time.

But by Sunday, we should all be in our own zone: Wedding Time! That's THE ball game, Folks! That's where it's all at right now. :)

A New Season

Tomorrow afternoon Donica and I fly back to Amsterdam...after 5 tumultuous weeks here at home! Thank God we did not know at the end of January that we would come back to Donica's mom's death. But we did. We had "a season" of death and dying to go through. It's still not done, because we have yet to disburse the possessions and sell the house. But that will be in April when we come back again.

For now, we start a new season. The "spring-forward" time change has just happened today in America. And while some will find it hard to believe, Spring really is around the corner.

For Nicholas, his new baseball season is underway with practices twice a week and a scrimmage game this past Thursday. Lucky for me, I was able to join Amy in the stands and cheer on our Big Boy. This season he's a Cardinal (no longer a Kansas City Royal) and will be wearing his new uniform going forward.

I love how even at age 7 this is Big Boy Stuff. He even gets to hang up his own bat bag by himself and keep all his ducks in a row.

This particular scrimmage there were 4 innings, two of which Nicholas played the shortstop position...

...and two as catcher!

OMG! I was popping all my buttons watching him. He's in a much more competitive league this year but he seems to be eating it up. The thing is, he gets it! It's like he was tailor-made for the game. So fun to watch.

We'll hate missing some of the games, but that's what happens when we go to Amsterdam! Amy will update us after every game, as will he, I'm sure. We're but a phone call away, even on the other side of the world!

Those of you who still have snow, trust me, it'll soon melt. We had snow flurries here in Atlanta yesterday morning, even though none of the snow stuck to the ground. It's been such a long winter compared to the last several years, but I think it's a good sign, so I'm not complaining. Easy for me to say here in Atlanta, I know.

A new season IS on the way. For all of us who need it, we welcome it!

I Got Taken!

"America's Favorite Pastime," they say! Maybe so because every year we always want to go at least once to our Turner Field of Dreams, so when Donica looked and found tickets online last week (on the spur of the moment), she took me...the very next day!

It was the "rubber" game between the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros. We had just beat them soundly the previous 2 nights (12-4, 12-3), so there was lots of excitement in the air.

We didn't eat the proverbial hotdog but we did eat at the stadium before heading to our seats. Watching them get the field ready always fascinates me. How many men does it take to hose down the bases? TEN!

Donica happened to find seats directly behind home base, 26 rows up. Apparently two season-ticket holders couldn't make it that night. Their loss, our gain.
See the catcher? That's Brian McCann. And because we got there early enough, we were 2 of the 10,000 people who got T-shirts with his name and number. He's one big asset to our team, so we'll give the shirts to Donica's teenage twin nephews with pride.

Besides watching the game (I really did!), I spent lots of time figuring out night shots on my camera. In the beginning, while it was still light, it was easy. But as the darkness descended, I wanted to get good long-exposure shots. So I experimented!

This Coke bottle (from which fireworks are sometimes launched) was directly across the field from home base. I had my gorilla tripod with me and set up the camera on top of a railing. It worked!

BUT! After all that, we lost the rubber game, 12-11 in the 14th inning! Boo Hoo. Talk about a game! We actually left the stadium at the beginning of the 11th inning (it was late, folks, and it was a work night for Donica), drove the almost-hour home, got into bed, and watched the end of the game before the last out. I'm guessing that was after midnight. Don't know. We were too tired to remember.

Ah yes! Once a year is about all we need to get that pastime into our system for good, enough to appreciate the TV viewpoint from the family room from then on.

Still, there's nothing quite like being taken! It really still is America's favorite pastime for so many people in our country! We happen to be two of them. :)