Popcorn and Crackerjack

Baseball season is finally upon us. Really, I consider baseball season as that long, lonely time between the end of the college basketball season and the beginning of football season (both forms of the American game) sprinkled in with some random MLS action on weekend afternoons. You see, I grew up a sCrubs fan, but after 2003 when Dusty Baker rode Mark Prior and Kerry Wood into the playoffs and then threw Prior under the bus after the Bartman incident, not to mention ruining both Prior and Wood's arms (Zambrano...you're next) all the while mismanaging the bullpen and not effectively using Kyle Farnsworth throughout the season...and then STILL being employed the following season, I've given up. I watched a sum total of one sCrubs game last season, and that was while I was shooting pool with my dad. Turned out, that was the only game the sCrubs won at home during the month of June. Let's all say it together: "pathetic".

Also, in the subsequent years, the World Series was won by the Red Sox and the White Sox and I haven't yet stopped throwing up from the Red Sox winning and I'm still bitter about asshole Sox fans who, when offered congrats from a sCrubs fan responded with "Fuck you, we won it first, ha ha ha ha ha!"

Ah, thank you for my rant. Now, back to regularly scheduled programming.

It's baseball season in the minor leagues, too, and I happen to live in the home of "America's favorite minor league franchise, the Durham Bulls!". In case you were wondering why they have that moniker, I believe it has something to do with the movie Bull Durham. If you watch it, you actually can see some of the buildings near my old work in the downtown tobacco warehouse district. It's since been (mosty) cleaned up, and the area around the ballpark is really nice. (Incidentally, while Bull Durham was shot in Durham, I couldn't identify anything familiar in The Rookie, which did, allegedly, spend some time in Durham...also...the old ballpark from Bull Durham is where the World Beer Fest is held in the fall).

So, last night, as a special Easter/Spring Break treat for my kids, we bundled up and headed out to the old ball park to take in the game against the Syracuse Sky Chiefs. Happily, the Bulls won, but since it took longer to wake my little boy up than I planned, we missed the first inning (which featured a two-run-dinger for the good guys) and didn't get a chance to score the game, which is something I love doing for some reason. However, the true fun was all the stuff the kids got. Since it was chilly, I went ahead and bought them both hats at the team store and, since they were getting hats, I bought a hat for myself. Then we went and found our seats, hung out for a little bit, and then we got peanuts (my daughter LOVES to crack the peanuts out of the shell and eat them) and a pretzel and some drinks and then later split a funnel cake (although my little boy just licked it to get the powdered sugar off...hopefully that strain of strep we've been sharing is good and dead). During the course of the game, a guy came by with baseballs that he retrieved from behind the Bull (the Bull's eyes light up and smoke comes out its nostrils when a Bulls player hits a home run...if you've seen Bull Durham, you know what I'm talking about) and he gave each of my kids a ball.

So, they got ballpark food, baseball hats, and baseballs. But then, on Sundays, the groundscrew allows the kids to come out and run around the bases after the game. So, we decided to do that, and since both of my children fall under the 7-and-under group, they got to run together. I asked my daughter if she wanted me to go with them, and she said no, that she would take care of her brother while they were out there (she's five, he's two). Well, they herded them together, and I think my little boy was confused as to what was going on, so when they sent my daughter running, he got left behind and then kind of fell back in the pack. Finally, he figured out what to do and took off down the first base line. However, since it was Easter, the Easter Bunny was about halfway between home plate and first base, handing out high-fives. My little boy ran up, gave him a high five, and kept going...for about five more steps. He then turned around and tried to get the Easter Bunny's attention.

Now, the heir to my vast empire is following along nicely in his father's footsteps in that he shows an equal amount of fascination with pretty blonde girls in tight khaki pants. Fortunately for him, just such a creature appeared and took his little hand and ran with him around first base and down to second base, where she handed him off to Wool E. Bull, the Durham Bulls mascot. I'm sure this was part of his plan all along. He's an evil genius. I feel sorry for the girls at Notre Dame in 16 years.

Here, Wool E. Bull took my boy's little hand and ran with him down to third base...and this was broadcast on the big scoreboard screen in left field. So, there was my child, running with the Bull, down to third. The camera stayed on him as he rounded third and Wool E. Bull trotted back to the nearest china shoppe second base while my little boy brought it home to score the run. There, my daughter was waiting for him, we were all reunited, and everyone had a wonderful time. If the video ever pops up on YouTube or some other outlet like that, I'll be sure to post it.

All-in-all a good night. We're headed back tomorrow night. Hopefully, it will be warmer.