1 : 131 : WC : 1
Puck’s somewhat difficult school week came to a close at three o’clock that afternoon when I released the boys to the playground for an hour and a half of sun and fresh air. Nothing a bag of goldfish crackers and an eager beaver copycat little brother couldn’t mend. Puck was soon laughing and running around like a happy 3rd grade boy again.
Somewhere around 5:30 that evening, I walked through the gates of Busch Stadium for the first time since last September . A lot had happened since then. And with no Spring Training 2016, it had been a long seven months of no baseball since that warm Sunday afternoon of the last home game of 2015. But there we were again. This time it was Grandma, Mom, Carrie-Bri, and myself. Three generations of Cardinals fans.
While Mom and I waited in line to pick up some dinner for the four of us, I reminded her to ask the cashier if the nacho cheese sauce was spicy. Carrie wasn’t feeling up to spicy, and frankly, I wasn’t either.
“Oh no,” the cashier assured us. “It’s not spicy at all.”
Ten minutes later as I worked my way through the small mountain of corn chips and cheese sauce, waiting for the game to start, I felt the old tear ducts come to life a little bit. I guess everyone has a different definition of spicy. I’m a Midwest girl.
Anyway, nachos done and done, it was game time. Our mostly bearded crew had taken the field for the evening: one Dominican, one Puerto Rican, an Oklahoman, Hawaiian, Cuban defector, two Texans, an Indianian, and a Californian. Just one fascinating thing to love about baseball – so many cultures playing ball on the same field together. Not a single one from St. Louis, but all adopted by St. Louis.
The evening turned fine in a hurry. Just after the sun sank below the stadium ridge, the Boys of Summer began ratcheting up the home runs, one after another, including two by my personal favorite. It seemed like the celebratory fireworks were running low on ammunition after awhile. Six total. Seven if it hadn’t been for Cincinnati’s rocket-fast athletic center fielder snatching one out of the books in the batter’s eye.
And between power displays, the easy restlessness of 44,997 fans observing the game in their own ways. Whether it was Mom and Grandma laughing together about funny names in baseball – like Scooter Gennett – or Carrie and I pausing to analyze Hazelbaker’s current batting average, everyone has a different way to take in the game.
And so with a victory in hand, I rolled back home to my three slumbering boys about 11:30 that night. That might have been a personal best.