Ch. 172; Vol. 10
Last day. Last checklists. Last piles of sticky coins. I was tired. Didn’t even really know why, but I was in a heavy company of exhausted volunteers, so I let that one go. We arranged tables heavy with hot dogs, condiments, bags of chips, and cookies… I ate the crumbs from the homemade chocolate chip brownie cookies. So did Oluva Cross…
“I just want to say,” VBS Director, Ia, told us. “That I love you guys right now.”
Inflatable slides, root beer floats, horses, chickens… Puck was really good with those chickens actually. He walked carefully behind the feathery black and gold creatures before gently grabbing them around their fat middles, grinning at the craziness of actually holding a chicken.
As we drove away in the muggy oven of the early afternoon, Puck requested that I flip on an R.C. Sproul sermon from his CD stack. We hit the two-land road into Cottleville…
“Mom! He’s praying! Close your eyes!”
Turning into the old neighborhood…
“Mom, what are children of wrath?”
So I was getting pretty pumped. Two games in one weekend, Gloria’s family in town, another chance to see a baseball idol – hey, I walk a fine line; not really; it’s not so bad; but don’t ask just anyone about that. First, though…
Target.
Mom, Carrie, Puck, and myself. Beat a little heat; I decided that jeans would no longer be an option to wear to the game that night. But Puck needed new church shirts pretty badly, actually. Puck had been eyeing the “muscle man” shirts before, but this time, Carrie was also there to promote them. They came to a weighed decision on a particular green and yellow with stripes option, which Puck highly approved. And then… some summer jams… a combination between Star Wars and Angry Birds, with a death star that resembled more a pig than a Death Star.
When I read Ron Washington’s [Rangers manager] comments to MLB about not playing Berkman in St. Louis, I wasn’t too happy…
“I don’t think [Berkman] has any sentimental feelings about being back in St. Louis. If he does, he can come into my office, and I might think about it.”
I was afraid of that. Still, what I had been looking forward to since I heard Puma had signed again for another season. What else do you do when your favorite baseball player comes home? I went to the game.
I sat about ten rows back from the Rangers dugout to hunt up Claus and Rupert. Scanning for blue. Trying to cut the stale heat with a single bottle of water balanced by a boxed 1926 World Series beer stein promotional giveaway, which was about half the size of a normal beer stein. But no success. And no Berkman either.
Sometime later – still not game time – The Bear exited our seats in the sun to cool off in the cafe. I held the fort, staring off somewhere into the green, green, green of the floor below…
“Go Rangers!”
There was Rupert, suggesting his affable premonition right into my ear. Greetings. Hugs. Claus was right behind him. Say what you will, but the red and the blue are friendly to each other.
“We let ourselves get heckled some,” Claus noted over the surge of music, as The Bear joined us.
“Were they nice to you?” – I wanted to just make sure.
“Oh, yeah,” Rupert waved his hand. “Midwesterners?”
So our reputation precedes.
And, no, the game didn’t fall in my favor, nor was a single hair of Berkman seen on the field – even when a pinch hitter was called out late – but what can be done? The Bear bought me a box of nachos – my first real baseball fare. I think I got a funny look from the guy next to me: that’s what cheese and sour cream over tortilla chips will do. But what did I know about ballpark nachos? And Claus and Rupert approved of the stadium and fans. So that made up for it some. Not to mention Berkman’s later quote in the news…
“…I love it, because I can rub it in with my teammates and ask ’em how it feels… This feels more like a home coming.”
So I was satisfied.
[Quotes taken from MLB.]