Eleven
Game Number Eleven on the season.
Irish and I left just after nine-thirty in the morning with a couple of frozen water bottles and an STL cooling towel that Carrie-Bri had just ordered in.
A few of the boys were on the sizzling Kentucky Bluegrass, lobbing baseballs. Irish sat front row by the field, a few yards removed from Kelly and Wacha, scoping out some potential autographs. But it was clearly too hot to stick around. Eighty-eight degrees, climbing, and after half an hour we had cooked ourselves; sought shade.
I don’t recall eating ballpark food more than once before. And I’m not sure Hardee’s counts, but we waited in line for a basket of fries and a monster burger before locating our seats next to Uncle Rico.
“You’re eating that whole thing by yourself?” the gray-haired lady asked Irish, clearly surprised.
“Oh, no. I’m sharing with my sister.”
The lady nodded approval.
We couldn’t finish that bloated burger before the national anthem. Standing with burger in hand, Irish almost put it right over her heart. Then instinctively almost shoved it in her mouth.
“Would that be disrespectful, to eat it during the national anthem?”
“Probably.”
“Well then,” she eyed the burger basket. “One fry. For America.”
I think the game blistered somewhere past 100 degrees before the end. The heat index easily got that high. Fortunately we found our shade back in section 434. Irish cooled off later with chocolate Dip ‘n Dots between scoring innings and cheering on her favorite, Mr. Jon Jay in Right Field. My hands still smelled like cow and mayo. Hazy cloudscape; just right for summer. It was a tight loss, but still worth the trip. When is it ever not worth the trip?
Eight hours later, we zoomed back in, although we both agreed it felt like less than eight hours. Puck had a satisfying day with Mom and Carrie, even Gloria, and then a little bit of Minecraft with Uncle Francis, who was busy admiring the locking system on the brand new Goldilocks: lock, unlock, lock, unlock, lock, unlock.
El Oso treated our little family of three to Steak ‘n Shake for dinner. Well, really Grandma did: birthday gift card for El Oso. Prince of Royale for me; sometimes it pays to take a break from the grilled cheese. And a 75-cent “slappy bracelet” for Puck from the gumball machine.
Silky’s for dessert after the Puckster went down to snoozeland.
Spoiled.