On a glorious early fall afternoon last weekend we had the chance to enjoy a great game of baseball between the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins. This was a replay of a game previously cancelled by rain. The crowd was sparse. The action was exciting! Dana and Andy were seated in a field level box behind home plate with tickets Dana won in a drawing at work. This was their view:
I was seated in an upper level seat, almost above the clouds. This was my view:
Don’t feel sorry for me. I loved the view. I even took some photos of the city from that lofty height.
The thing I found most interesting was that as people came into the upper level, no matter that there were slightly better seats below them and no one was checking tickets in the upper levels, by and large they went to the seats they purchased. I of course sat in a better seat, figuring I would move when the rightful owners showed up, which they never did. About the 5th inning I made my way down to the field level, also about ½ empty, and took a seat with Dana and Andy in their completely empty row.
Shortly the game heated up and the Indians ran away with it, 8 – 2. Fireworks and an interview with Shelley Duncan, the Star of the Game, completed our baseball day. We went home with some great memories and a Jim Thome poster.
Baseball is the game I grew up with. One of my first summer memories is of laying in the grass at my grandparent’s house listening to the Cincinnati Reds on the radio. My great-grandfather would sit in one of those old-fashioned metal lawn chairs with the radio in his pocket and an ear phone in his ear so he could hear the game better. This was in the early ’60s. Games were telecast but in those pre-cable, pre-air conditioner days, it was better to sit outside on pleasant summer evening listening to the game on the radio, seeing it in your mind’s eye, rather than trying to watch it on a black and white TV with the sometimes fuzzy reception gained by merely an antennae.
One of the sweetest events in spring is that of Opening Day. After a long, dreary winter, hope is renewed that summer will come again. One of the saddest is when the season ends, signaling an end to summer. In your town summer, may be extended with play-offs and the World Series, but not in Cleveland, not this year. We will be bracing for snow and dreaming about next spring’s call to “play ball!”
I have never been to a baseball game – it sounds really fast-paced, and a fantastic opportunity for taking photographs! I would’ve been roaming from one section to the next, looking for interesting angles, and trying to zoom in on the players… though I suppose one isn’t really supposed to be a ‘roving photographer’ at such events?
Delighted you got to sit with Dana and Andy later on – I’m sure they loved it!