Take Me Out to the Ballgame

The best day of the summer, so far, occurred last Wednesday when I sat at Elfstrom Stadium in Geneva with two of my daughters to watch the Kane County Cougars play. First I have to do some parental bragging. The reason we went on Wednesday evening was that both Katelyn (age 10 yesterday) and Ally (age 7) read the required amount of minutes or books to be part of the Ozzie Reading Club. As a result, they each received a ticket to the game and I was only too happy to accompany them.

Before the game began, all the students and their parents were allowed to parade around the warning track of the field. I can’t speak for the girls, but being able to walk on a professional baseball field is awesome. The players are right there warming up, others are sitting in the dugout preparing for the game. Walking through the bullpen, ambling alongside the first and thirdbase lines made my mind wander to “What would have happened if I could have hit a curve ball?”

After the parade the girls grabbed a hotdog and we settled in our seats. Katelyn was intent on learning the game’s subtleties, and more than once pointed out to me that “the bases were loaded” [That’s my girl, yo!] Ally was consistently amazed at the sight of all of her friends and various teachers in the stands.

As an added treat, the girls each received an Ozzie Reading Club T-Shirt and the tradition has become that all the kids sign each others shirts with a Sharpie (both girls were able to snag Ozzie’s autograph as well). Some fortunate kids in Katelyn’s class even received my autograph which went thusly: “Mr. B. Derrek Lee is a stud! Cubs.” I had trouble concentrating on the game for the long line of autograph hounds.

The game itself had a little bit of everything. Amazing defensive plays, poor defensive plays [at one point in the game, the Cougars line score resembled a druken man’s vision of Hank Aaron’s uniform: 4 4 4] and a building no-hitter. The home town Cougars were being no hit until the 5th inning. The crowd really came to life in the 5th, not when the Cougars erupted for four runs, but when the P.A. system blared “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” And the crowd yelled back “SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!”

During the seventh inning stretch we all rose and sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and when the line came to “root, root, root for the Cougars” Katelyn looked at me and said “Why did they say Cougars? They were supposed to say ‘Cubs’”, I just smiled the smile of a father who knows he’s done his job well.

The lower 40 degree temperature and wind gusting in from centerfield eventually did us in by the 8th inning, but a good time was had by the girls and an incredible time was had by their dad. Oh yeah, the Cougars ended up winning 5-3.