My sweetie and I went to a ballgame last night, the minor league Tacoma Rainiers vs. Fresno Grizzlies. The weather was marvelous and our team won and a good time was had by all but the Grizzlies fans.
We had really good seats - first base line, right above the dugout. We were in a reserved section with a smattering of season ticket holders seated around us. Two of those seasoned ticket holders were sitting right behind us. Dorothy and Irene, eighty-something sisters, have been coming to games at Cheney Stadium since the early 60s. They were a hoot, rooting on their team and being very critical of the Mariners. Seems the Mariners are always taking their favorite players and not giving anything of value back. They were happier when the Tacoma Tigers, an Oakland As farm team, were playing at Cheney.
The crowd was very mellow, there were fans of all ages, lots of kids and families. That mood changed slightly when the beer garden stopped serving dollar beers. That was somewhere around the 5th inning and the dislocated drinkers started stumbling up into the stands. One guy got so drunk in the beer garden, he lost his wiener somewhere in the stands. He was the token "drunk-happy-guy-trying-to-get-everyone's-attention" for our section.
Happy-drunk guy and his friends (well, mostly him) started cheering and heckling and doing their best to get into the baseball mood. Unfortunately for them, the exciting part of the game ended with the second inning. That's when the Rainiers scored all 8 of their runs with soaring homers, stinging base hits, stolen bases and home base slides past the hapless catcher.
It was a very good date for us, a mellow activity without parenting responsibilities and good, cheap food. We helped ourselves to two dogs apiece, plus soda and ice cream. I skipped the beer, since the $ beers were restricted to the beer garden (too crowded and can't see the game from there). The regular beers were $4.50 and I didn't feel like standing in line for those either. No biggie, my root beer washed down the dogs just fine.
We're definitely gonna do this again sometime. We're considering getting a multiple-game package next season and dragging some friends along. The only downside to last night's outing was when we remembered it wasn't Friday, cuz it sure felt like a Friday.