SeaDogs Baseball!
Sep. 6th, 2009 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_lupusSo mom, dad, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
glassbeetle and I all headed to Portland today for a SeaDogs game. I figured, after living here for nearly 7 years, it was about dang time, since when I moved to Portland, one of my thoughts was "yay! now I can go to games whenever I want! they're right down the street!". WRONG. A million thanks are not enough for our friend J, who can get free tickets through his workplace. Finally, I get to Hadlock Field. Seats along the 3rd base side, 2nd row, right behind the visitors dugout. Doesn't get much better than that, let me tell you.
It was 'Field of Dreams' Day and Fan Appreciation Day, apparently. Arrived, had no idea what was in store.glassbeetle had never been to a baseball game before, did not know the first thing about baseball... oh... my... we will fix this, yes we will. Dad and I talked her ear off through the game, and there are some movies that will need to be watched, soon.
Looking into center field, we notice a big wall o' cornstalks... heh... Field of Dreams... I wonder if they'll... nah. Then the music from the movie starts playing over the speaker system... an announcer in old-timey clothes starts talking about Hadlock Field, and the SeaDogs, and the history, and how great all the fans are, and how much we all love baseball, and how good it is. Pure. Perfect. The team today would wear replica uniforms from the 1926 Portland Eskimos. Pretty nondescript, gray with black lettering, standard early era. Then the players came out of the "cornfield"... Combine the music with the joy I felt at being at a ballgame again, with the general ambiance and homage to one of (if not THE) my favorite movies, and I am not ashamed to say I teared up a little... they may have even leaked onto my cheeks... It was beautiful.
The game itself was pretty darn good, too! I kept score, I think reasonably accurately, even though the outcome on my scoresheet wasn't any better than the one on the main scoreboard... SeaDogs still lost... oh well. There was excellent pitching, a couple home runs, a Grand Slam (for THEM...), some stolen bases, good hits, good catches, everything you need in a baseball game (I managed to ignore the dancing mascots and goofy stuff happening not 10 feet in front of me on the top of the dugout, too, which was nice. Guys in baseball uniforms tend to grab my attention and hold it pretty well.). Couple broken bat hits, one of which, with amazing timing, I managed to catch on camera (see above). Ball went to left, bat went to right, batter was out, but WOW.
Had a wonderful, wonderful time. We will have to do this again sometime, but will need to wait till next year... the last home game is tomorrow, and I'm working. Poo. Maybe Fox will come in, and I can watch the Red Sox...
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again." ~James Earl Jones as Terrence Mann, 'Field of Dreams'
Oh yeah, and there's pictures... enjoy. :)
glassbeetle and I all headed to Portland today for a SeaDogs game. I figured, after living here for nearly 7 years, it was about dang time, since when I moved to Portland, one of my thoughts was "yay! now I can go to games whenever I want! they're right down the street!". WRONG. A million thanks are not enough for our friend J, who can get free tickets through his workplace. Finally, I get to Hadlock Field. Seats along the 3rd base side, 2nd row, right behind the visitors dugout. Doesn't get much better than that, let me tell you.It was 'Field of Dreams' Day and Fan Appreciation Day, apparently. Arrived, had no idea what was in store.
glassbeetle had never been to a baseball game before, did not know the first thing about baseball... oh... my... we will fix this, yes we will. Dad and I talked her ear off through the game, and there are some movies that will need to be watched, soon.Looking into center field, we notice a big wall o' cornstalks... heh... Field of Dreams... I wonder if they'll... nah. Then the music from the movie starts playing over the speaker system... an announcer in old-timey clothes starts talking about Hadlock Field, and the SeaDogs, and the history, and how great all the fans are, and how much we all love baseball, and how good it is. Pure. Perfect. The team today would wear replica uniforms from the 1926 Portland Eskimos. Pretty nondescript, gray with black lettering, standard early era. Then the players came out of the "cornfield"... Combine the music with the joy I felt at being at a ballgame again, with the general ambiance and homage to one of (if not THE) my favorite movies, and I am not ashamed to say I teared up a little... they may have even leaked onto my cheeks... It was beautiful.
The game itself was pretty darn good, too! I kept score, I think reasonably accurately, even though the outcome on my scoresheet wasn't any better than the one on the main scoreboard... SeaDogs still lost... oh well. There was excellent pitching, a couple home runs, a Grand Slam (for THEM...), some stolen bases, good hits, good catches, everything you need in a baseball game (I managed to ignore the dancing mascots and goofy stuff happening not 10 feet in front of me on the top of the dugout, too, which was nice. Guys in baseball uniforms tend to grab my attention and hold it pretty well.). Couple broken bat hits, one of which, with amazing timing, I managed to catch on camera (see above). Ball went to left, bat went to right, batter was out, but WOW.
Had a wonderful, wonderful time. We will have to do this again sometime, but will need to wait till next year... the last home game is tomorrow, and I'm working. Poo. Maybe Fox will come in, and I can watch the Red Sox...
"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again." ~James Earl Jones as Terrence Mann, 'Field of Dreams'
Oh yeah, and there's pictures... enjoy. :)
