Lifelong dream come true
Jun. 13th, 2008 06:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beth_leonardToday was awesome. It's not every day that you realize a childhood fantacy.
I got a foul-tip ball at a professional baseball game and gave it to a child.
When I was a girl in St. Louis, my father had tickets to the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals through his work. He got to go to about 6 games/year with my mom and customers. Sometimes, about once or twice a year, the customers would cancel and he'd get to take my brother and me.
Watching a Cardinals game in the late 80's was fantastic. I enjoyed every minute of those games, from the drive over the rolling hills, to watching the Arch rise in the distance, to the traffic on the way home. Vince Coleman and Ozzy Smith always led it off, trying to steal bases. They were great to watch in the field too.
My brother and I would bring our ball gloves and watch the action intently, waiting for our chance at a foul ball. The seats were about 14 rows back behind first base, so it wasn't impossible that we'd get one. I'd yell to the players, "Hit one to me! I'll remember your name forever!" but it never happened. I really wanted to get a ball, but a part of my heart also wanted to get one and then give it away to a little kid (I was 10-12 at the time.)
This afternoon I took Peter to a San Jose Giants minor league baseball game with my mother. It was fantastic. Peter was very well behaved, but we kept him active and involved in the game.
I took him with me to get food, and on the way back we saw batter #29 for the Lancaster JetHawks hit a foul ball right to Grandma Coleman in the stands. It bounced off the awning above her and down to the mid-section, bounce up again and into the tunnel... right in front of me and Peter.
I yelled "hurry, Peter hurry! We can get it!" We scrambled over and I picked up the ball before anyone else could get there. And of course I gave it right to Peter.
The fans cheered! Peter glowed! I heard someone say "Nice catch little guy!" and some else corrected him with "nice catch Mom!"
Back in the stands we showed our catch to Grandma and everyone all around. Peter was very excited, but I realize that he may have been getting some of that from me. It brought back so many good memories of watching and playing baseball as a kid I almost got all choked up for a second.
We kept good track of the ball the whole game, and tried to get it signed by the Giants at the end. They lost 7-4 (they were up 1-0 until the 8th, when they gave up 7 runs, so the guys were pretty bummed and didn't want to do autographs today.) So we went over and had it signed by the opposing team. We got #32 to sign it, and he seemed pretty happy about that.
I know Peter had the ball when we arrived at our car in the parking lot, and I could swear he was holding it as we drove away. But when we got home and came inside to show Dad and Amber what we got, we couldn't find it anywhere. We took the whole inside of the car apart and can't find it. I'm hoping it will turn up. I drove all the way back to the stadium to check and see if we dropped it in the parking lot and it didn't get picked up.
We have a ball from a previous game that we didn't catch, so I put that in Peter's glove and we'll pretend it's the one we got today in the morning. It's hard to do, but I just don't know what happened to that ball and I've got to stop looking for it and do other things. If someone else found it in the parking lot I hope it made them very happy.
Hopefully Peter will understand when he's older. And maybe, if we're lucky, he'll get another chance.
--Beth
Update: We found it!!! It was under the other car in our garage. Yay!!!
I got a foul-tip ball at a professional baseball game and gave it to a child.
When I was a girl in St. Louis, my father had tickets to the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals through his work. He got to go to about 6 games/year with my mom and customers. Sometimes, about once or twice a year, the customers would cancel and he'd get to take my brother and me.
Watching a Cardinals game in the late 80's was fantastic. I enjoyed every minute of those games, from the drive over the rolling hills, to watching the Arch rise in the distance, to the traffic on the way home. Vince Coleman and Ozzy Smith always led it off, trying to steal bases. They were great to watch in the field too.
My brother and I would bring our ball gloves and watch the action intently, waiting for our chance at a foul ball. The seats were about 14 rows back behind first base, so it wasn't impossible that we'd get one. I'd yell to the players, "Hit one to me! I'll remember your name forever!" but it never happened. I really wanted to get a ball, but a part of my heart also wanted to get one and then give it away to a little kid (I was 10-12 at the time.)
This afternoon I took Peter to a San Jose Giants minor league baseball game with my mother. It was fantastic. Peter was very well behaved, but we kept him active and involved in the game.
I took him with me to get food, and on the way back we saw batter #29 for the Lancaster JetHawks hit a foul ball right to Grandma Coleman in the stands. It bounced off the awning above her and down to the mid-section, bounce up again and into the tunnel... right in front of me and Peter.
I yelled "hurry, Peter hurry! We can get it!" We scrambled over and I picked up the ball before anyone else could get there. And of course I gave it right to Peter.
The fans cheered! Peter glowed! I heard someone say "Nice catch little guy!" and some else corrected him with "nice catch Mom!"
Back in the stands we showed our catch to Grandma and everyone all around. Peter was very excited, but I realize that he may have been getting some of that from me. It brought back so many good memories of watching and playing baseball as a kid I almost got all choked up for a second.
We kept good track of the ball the whole game, and tried to get it signed by the Giants at the end. They lost 7-4 (they were up 1-0 until the 8th, when they gave up 7 runs, so the guys were pretty bummed and didn't want to do autographs today.) So we went over and had it signed by the opposing team. We got #32 to sign it, and he seemed pretty happy about that.
I know Peter had the ball when we arrived at our car in the parking lot, and I could swear he was holding it as we drove away. But when we got home and came inside to show Dad and Amber what we got, we couldn't find it anywhere. We took the whole inside of the car apart and can't find it. I'm hoping it will turn up. I drove all the way back to the stadium to check and see if we dropped it in the parking lot and it didn't get picked up.
We have a ball from a previous game that we didn't catch, so I put that in Peter's glove and we'll pretend it's the one we got today in the morning. It's hard to do, but I just don't know what happened to that ball and I've got to stop looking for it and do other things. If someone else found it in the parking lot I hope it made them very happy.
Hopefully Peter will understand when he's older. And maybe, if we're lucky, he'll get another chance.
--Beth
Update: We found it!!! It was under the other car in our garage. Yay!!!
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-13 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-13 05:39 am (UTC)--Beth
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Date: 2008-06-13 08:14 am (UTC)Yeah. :-)
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Date: 2008-06-13 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-19 06:55 am (UTC)--Beth
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Date: 2008-06-14 08:18 pm (UTC)Grandma