10 : 170 : 2 : 10

I could hear the boys talking through the air vent in the floor that morning.

“Yali, no. Don’t get into the vent. All there is is boring stuff down there.”

Oxbear had already taken both boys on a mission of exploration that morning into the bowels of the couch cushions. And even better – behind the couch. By the time they moved to the floor vent, Puck was attempting to convince Yali that there was no new frontier left to explore. All the good land had already been discovered and pillaged. A few moments later, however, he seemed to change his tune.

“Wait, Dad. Let me see if there’s a quarter down there…”

As the mission continued, Puck began to realize that he had been totally wrong about treasures in the air vent.

“Oooh! Bottle caps! For my collection! There’s all kinds of stuff down there!”

Mid-morning, Oxbear left for the chiropractor again, so I had the boys to myself. They pretty much take care of themselves most of the time when they’re together. If it wasn’t the two of them dancing to the radio in the living room – Yali naturally imitating all of Puck’s moves – it was Puck wildly smashing a white domino with a small hammer on the counter – just to see what happened to it – while Joe banged the Chinese gong in the living room. This is why I could never actually leave them completely unsupervised.

My tenth game of the season did not go as planned.

Carrie-Bri and I drove downtown – water bottles as snacks – to Busch Stadium, a place I hadn’t seen in six weeks.

Section 170, Left Field, Matt Holliday territory. This was as close as I was going to get for the rest of the season. I had been waiting for this game for a long time.

The bottom of the 1st inning, Matt Holliday went down. Fast. He was injured enough to not even bother touching 1st base running out the double play on his way to the dugout. Ug.

So instead of watching my all-time favorite field balls in Left on a mild warm summer evening in my first return to baseball since South America … I got the rookie back of #55 Stephen Piscotty.

Not the same.

Carrie and I left the game talking trade deadline. It wasn’t looking pretty.

I crashed into bed sometime around 11:30.