A Night At The Ballpark

Mom was back in her element: a summer night at the ballpark.
Wednesday was circled on our calendar for a long time. That's because it is the night Emily's classmate, Spencer, plays baseball. We sat with his parents, Mike and Jodi (pictured above) and their two daughters.

So we hopped in the Suburban and headed down to Bellevue to watch him play ball. Though we arrived a little bit late, we did get to see him pitch the three innings he threw. Unfortunately, he tired in the third and struggled with his control. A few wild pitches led to some walks - and ultimately, a few runs. Offensively, he was a little sharper, reaching on a walk and striking out. (We missed his first at-bat.)

For the girls, this was probably their first outing at a youth baseball game. Sure, we've been to the Omaha Royals and even a couple College World Series games (though it has been a few years). As Mom explained, she used to spend many a summer night at Baldwin Field watching one of her old boyfriends (Rick) play Legion baseball. Dad, too, has stories to share of watching summer baseball games when he was writing for the Grand Island Independent newspaper in the summer of 1988. (We won't revisit his ineptitude when it came to scoring whether it was a hit, an error, a wild pitch or a passed ball.)

One funny thing that Dad remembered from his days of covering baseball was where not to park. When we pulled into the lot, there was plenty of parking available right up front. As Mom was easing into a space just behind the backstop, Dad said, "You might not want to park here." Then Mom suddenly remembered how foul balls tend to fly over the backstop and gravitate toward windshields.

So how did the girls fare during the four-inning affair? Lauren had fun running around - and hiding from - one of her classmates. Julia was feeling a bit tired and was ready to go home after about two innings. Veronica (not pictured) was having a ball running around while Olivia (also not shown) made sure her younger sister stayed out of trouble.

At the end of the night, Spencer's parents suggested we go to Dairy Queen. That was fine since we hadn't eaten dinner yet. Then, we suggested that Spencer and his sisters join us at the 10 a.m. free movie showing of "Barnyard" Thursday morning. We'll see if Spencer makes it, though. He was planning to stay out late.

As for us on Thursday, we'll have to see if we can catch the fireworks at Rosenblatt Stadium for the opening ceremonies of the College World Series. It's the first in a series of fireworks shows between now and the Fourth of July.