School Night

On Tuesday night, August 26, 2008, I took little Michael off to the third-to-last Royals game of the year at Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium. I'm hoping he'll grow up with some vague memories of the 'Blatt, mostly due to my repeated stories... legends... tall tales of times when the 'Blatt was king and I was queen. Or something.

Michael talks to a lion. This is Spike. Spike only started showing up 10 years ago (right after the Golden Age of Section P) when the Union Pacific bought the majority of the team and changed the name to the Omaha Golden Spikes. Yuck. I'm glad they sold it and the name got changed back.

I hope next year I remember to get a picture of him talking to Casey the lion. Casey's a happy friendly blue lion. Spike looks kind of... rough.

A panoramic photo of the stadium. Click it for a 1200px version. The bigger, the better. Look at all the massive teeming throngs of people in the stands! To be fair, this was during the 9th inning, when the Royals were down 14 to 4. On a school night.

But it just fills me with dismay that they're gonna tear this down to make it a fabulous new parking lot.

It turns out that when Rosenblatt is finally gone, Michael will have a little piece of it to keep forever! I wasn't paying attention when somehow he vandalized the place, and got the number tag un-riveted from his seat. I scowled, "Hey!" at him, and stuck it in my pocket so he wouldn't do something dumb like... put it back.

So what happens when it's late in the game, and nobody's there? You get to sit wherever you want. Michael decided to sit in Row 2, behind the dugout.

But the coolest part was when one of the baseball guys threw Michael a baseball. No, it wasn't a zinger fouled off at him, just a guy after a third out tossed it at him. And he didn't catch it, but a lady in front of us got it and said to Michael, "Well, he threw it to YOU..." I had to assure him that that was totally cool and awesome, and in all the games I've been to in my whole entire life, I've never got a ball from any how. See? It says Pacific Coast League on it!

Maybe not a big deal to most people, but to a poor boy from a minor-league town, it's the stuff that memories and tall tales are made of.