Wednesday, May 02, 2007

If you can compare today to yesterday ...

Today was a breeze.

Except ... I got as pink as ... well ... a flamingo!

No, not from embarrassment. From our friend, Mr. Sun. Turns out the sun decided to stop playing hide and seek around the time the game started. So by the second or third inning, the sun was out in full force.

Where was I? A Dodger game, naturally. Wasn't I just at one last night? Yup. Why was I at one again? It's one of their only afternoon games. Kevin and I left his place around 9:30, stopped at Burger King so I could grab some breakfast. It was a good idea. Not a great breakfast, just a good idea. In fact, I should've stuck to my original plan and went to Starbucks. We got to Dodger Stadium before ten. The gates weren't even open yet. There were about three lanes of cars in front of us, each three deep. So we sat in the car for about ten to fifteen minutes before they opened the gates. Some idiot decides to try to cut in front of me, and wouldn't take no for an answer. At least he was a polite idiot. He said thanks. Whatever. We parked. First row in the section, eighth car down. SWEET.

We got into the stadium a little after quarter after ten. Got to our seats. Since it was an afternoon game, I went cheap and got us tickets in the left field pavilion. PLUS, I wanted to get there early to get batting practice, warm-up, and bull pen pictures. Well, when we got there, only Randy Wolf and Derek Lowe (?) were on the field throwing a baseball around. It was a school field trip day, so there were about fourteen, fifteen different schools participating already there. They were seated in the right field paviolion. A bunch of very active Disney people were there, demonstrating the basics (and physics) of baseball. They announced that two Dodger outfielders would join them for some questions. Since the Dodgers only have Juan Pierre, Brady Clark, Luis Gonzalez, and Andre Ethier (am I missing anyone?), we figured Andre would be one of them. Turns out, it was Andre and Luis.

Here are some of the questions and answers mentioned. Q: Do the pitchers pitch underhand or over? A: There are overhand pitches, and to the side pitches. Underhand is mostly called softball. Q: What kind of bat is better? Aluminum or wood? A: Batter's preference. Major league requires wooden bats, however. Q: Are you married? (Actually, the way it was phrased was: my teacher wants to know if you're married.) A: One of the Disney team members asked, which one? Andre went first. "Uhh yes I am married. So is he." Then Luis says, "I am married. My triplets are eight, going to be nine." They asked questions like how many home runs have they hit (Andre, about 14 over a span of one full season, plus this one; Luis, probably over 300, over a span of 17 seasons). Another one was about when they started playing baseball, who their favorite baseball players were... I'll add more later if I can remember anything else. But that's about it.

Andre and Brady came out to warm up before Russell did. But because we were in the left pavilion, we had great views of all the players as they were warming up. Naturally, I took a TON of photos. It seems like every time we go to a game, okay every time I have gone to a game, my picture count goes up and up. The first time was like one or two hundred. Second time three, third time five. Can you guess what this trip totaled? Not six, not seven, but a little over EIGHT. Yup. Believe it or now. However, you know how digital or any kind of photography works. You take one roll (remember those days?) of twenty four exposures and if you're lucky, you can get about half to three-quarters worth of decent photographs. Okay, sure when it comes to a photography class anyway. But, it's true you know. For every twenty four pictures, you're lucky to come out with at least eight decent pics.

Remember those kids sitting in the right field pavilion earlier? They ranged from elementary to high school age. After the Disney thing finished, the classes dispersed to their ASSIGNED seatings. Some were in the top deck and some where with us in the left field pavilion. We overheard one kid say, "But Miss So-and-so said we could sit wherever." Yeah, right. And I'm marrying Russell Martin. Ha! Apparently, they didn't hear the announcer say they needed to go to their ASSIGNED seats. Well, good thing someone knew what they were doing because the kids did end up in their assigned seats. Not that it kept them there. There were a whole bunch of kids crowded in our section in the front row later on, trying to get one of the outfielders (namely Brady Clark) to throw them a baseball.

Sitting in the left is definitely different than anywhere else I have ever sat. Then again, this has only been my fifth game. But I have been fortunate enough to sit in a different section each time: top deck, right field pavilion, lower reserve, field, and now left field pavilion. Unfortunately, I probably won't be experiencing any other different seatings.

So, this lady comes in with her family, doesn't have a clue where their seats are. They sit down in one section, ask someone, and move over to the right section. Later on in the game, some guy comes in and tells her family they were sitting in their seats. "Season tickets." He says. They get up and move back a row. The guy leaves to get some paper towels to wipe off the bench where they stepped on. By then, the lady looks at her tickets and sees that they were in the right seats. The guy is calling for an usher. He calms down and sits with the family. He was quite a jerk about the whole thing.

There were two guys in front of us, with a three year old boy. The guys were nice. Unfortunately, they had to leave because the little boy started crying and wouldn't stop. It was around the time the sun came out and started really warming up the stadium.

Okay, since this blog is getting a little long ... let's see ...

Brady made a lot of great catches! Furcal scored one, Russell scored the other. Dodgers win! I'll post another entry with pics and the picture stats later.

Back to being pink part ... towards the end of the game, I noticed my right shoulder started to irritate me. That's when I realized ... uh oh, I should've grabbed that bottle of sunblock. As we were leaving the stadium, I noticed how pink my right arm was around the elbow. My left arm was a little pink, but not as much as my right arm. Good thing I had a baseball cap one or my face would be pink too! As the day went on, I discovered I was more burned than I realized. Including my knees.

2 comments:

Stacy said...

How fun....a day game. Sounds like it's a totally diff. atmosphere during the day games than say at an evening game. So where are the pictures to proove your pinkness = )

I want to go to a game so bad now...oh yeah and by the way I got all those questions right, minus the "married" questions = )

Falling LEAVes said...

hehe kevin and i didn't think about taking any pictures to proove my pinkness. Hehe anytime you want to take a road trip down here, give me at least two weeks in advance so i can make sure i have a day off to go to a game!