There is nothing like baseball in the summer. On a beautiful evening, not too hot, not too cold, just our family, our first outing to a game in our five-some. Strikes, hits, fouls and stolen bases. Some things are classics, and this is one of them. Sun setting over the stands, hot dogs, beer, cotton candy, peanuts and the crowd.
Baseball in the summer.
The Iron Pigs are our local AAA team (the AAA affiliate of the Philies – Sorry about that Red Sox nation – we dutifully wore our Red Sox shirts to the game anyway); they play at Coca-Cola park in Allentown. Last year K, O, Mor Far and I went to an Iron Pigs game, but this was Heather’s first IP game and Meera’s first professional baseball game.
Local baseball is a special thing. So much more family friendly than major league baseball and so much fun. We were also lucky enough to have some special tickets from my work right in front along first base. In all our lives we’ve never sat so close to a professional game; pretty awesome. In fact, it’s almost a sense of rightness in the world when it comes together like this. And rightness does not come along too often.
From the welcoming embrace of the staff, to the smiles of the players, to all three kids getting to run the bases at the end of the game (along with around 1,000 other kids). It just doesn’t get better than that. And that’s a big deal for us.
Except that we almost caught a foul ball. That was pretty awesome.
Summer Baseball.