Baseball, baseball, baseball!

Tonight will be a great night for baseball.  There will be three Little League games, a 7th grade Prep game, two Rookie softball games and the town team (Cubs) will be playing.  I believe the freshman are playing at 11:00 this morning.  Maybe I should be getting things ready in the concession stand.  In a minute.

I love baseball.  Dad used to take us to the Royals games.  We'd go on Ball Day, Bat Day, Cap Day, on Halter Top Day my brothers looked so cute!  We'd sit in the cheap seats where all the action was.  People had more fun there.  And we did too. 

Sometimes dad's cousin and his son would come too.  When they got together...watch out!  Not sure if mom was working those days or it was just a day for us to get out of her hair.  Probably the latter.  We were a bit of a handful. 

Not sure what was the best part of those days.  Was it the ball game, the special treat of a hotdog, maybe that us kids weren't fighting even though they, stupidly, put wooden bats in our hands?

Mom worked at the Golden Buffet in North Kansas City.  First as a waitress then the bookkeeper.  Her boss would give her his tickets to his box seats occasionally.  If I didn't think I was special sitting behind first base! 

I remember one game, for some reason I was a little bored with it, Vida Blue hit a single.  I'm thinking it was John Mayberry at first.  Vida made it to base, Mayberry tossed the ball back.  Vida Blue steps off the bag and Mayberry tagged him out.  Mayberry never threw the ball back!  He went through the motions but never threw the ball.  The stadium roared.  We laughed.  The look on Vida Blue's face was priceless.  And we were close enough to see it.

A few years ago I couldn't think of what to get dad for his birthday.  I came up with baseball cards with Freddie Patek, John Mayberry, Cookie (Cookie! Cookie!) Rojas, Paul Schaal, all the oldies when we were growing up.  Those times meant a lot to me.  I saw him looking through them later like a little kid.  It made me smile.

Beautiful day out.  It'll be a beautiful night for baseball.



At one game recently, I got after some kids for throwing rocks. "Please don't throw rocks!  Someone could get hurt!"  A parent said, " This is coming from someone who showed my kid how to make bombs?!"  Shut up, Kevin.  They were dry ice bombs.  It was science.