Kerrie dropped the boys off at the office at about 5:00 pm and we drove an hour to the game in what can only be described as the kind of rain that would cancel a football game, let alone a baseball game. We thought the game would not be played (and Lev moaned about it all the way there, while Daniel just said, "whatever") but I figured the worst that could happen is we would get there, find the game cancelled, and just go to dinner together.
Rush hour traffic combined with the weather to slow us to a crawl and pretty much confirm we would be late, but the rain did clear by the time we got there and the game was well on its way. We had the choice to pay $5 for preferred parking or $3 for regular parking, which was the same as saying you can park in New Britain for $5 or Harrisburg for $3. The boys chose regular parking to save us money and we proceeded to drive to the equivalent of long-term parking at the airport, about another 42 miles to the other lot, only to walk the 42 miles back to the stadium. By now it was the 4th inning.
Our hosts were barbecuing on the upper deck and we got there just as they were putting the burgers and hot dogs away, so fortunately the boys did not go hungry.
Baseball today is not quite how I remember it. Apparently, each inning is made up of advertisers hawking their wares with stupid little on-field games for the kids (e.g. "throw the laundry into the Maytag washing machine"...really) and in between the innings they have baseball players run out to bat, field, and run the bases. It was difficult to decipher the scoreboard because I couldn't tell if they were counting the number of times the laundry went into the washing machine or whether the Dunkin' Donut's jelly doughnut beat the sprinkle doughnut in a foot race. It is even possible they were counting the number of times the players ran around the bases after hitting the ball, but it was tough to tell. It's quite sad that our national pastime, if not all of our national pastimes, have become so adulterated...and this was just semi-pro.
Lev was torn between positioning himself to catch a foul ball or trying to be drafted by the Rock Cats as a utility laundry thrower. Neither occurred. Daniel spent the evening drinking gallons of iced tea like they were beer and holding his pee-pee in an antsy dance. He loves to wear hooded sweatshirts, but the gangsta look isn't as effective when you are dancing around holding your crotch...wait a minute...actually it is.
The Rock Cats were losing 4-0, but rallied late to tie. We left in the 8th inning (to allow time to walk back to Harrisburg to get our car), which was a good thing because the Rock Cats didn't win it until the bottom of the 13th.
