My very first home-opener...was one that I'll definitely remember for a long, long time.
Let's see. the game time temperature was 31; wind chill knocked it down to 20. No problem- Kenton and I were dressed for the elements. At times, I felt like the little kid sporting his red snowsuit from the movie, A Christmas Story. I think I had four shirts, a sweatshirt, a parka, two hats, and a pair of gloves on. Kenton went a step further and wore his Indians P.J.'s beneath his clothing. (Not sure if he'd appreciate me telling everyone that...oh, well.)
The festivities prior to the start of the game were awesome. Clydesdale horses circled the field to deliver Marine Lance Cpl. Richard Paul Turner for the opening pitch. (Right behind the horses were the pooper-scooper parade which struck me as funny because you certainly wouldn't want to dirty up the snow that was quickly covering the field!) As the ABJ reported,
Turner- 23 years old- lost his right eye, shattered a wrist and nearly died while trying to rescue a fellow Marine who had gone missing. God bless him!
Then came the anthem. Again, the Tribe chose to honor another Marine. They broadcasted over the scoreboard live satellite from Iraq a young female soldier to sing. She actually had a decent voice, but 1/3 of the way through the song, she decided to change keys...and then yet once again towards the end. Considering her service to our country, the crowd cut her a break...even Kenton behaved himself through it all.
And then after a whopping 1 1/2 innings, the snow really started piling up. Snow delay #1. Good time for nachos, right? We headed down to the concession stand and stood for 35 minutes while these truly clueless workers tried to handle the crowd's orders. There's this thing called "Tribe Fun-Money" which is definitely a misnomer, because each time that I've gone to the park with Kenton and he's attempted to use this to buy food, it really hasn't been a fun experience. In fact, I leaned over to him and said, "Five bucks says they have no idea how to use this!" Sure enough, it took some creative verbalization to convince these fine ladies that no, it really wasn't Monopoly money and that it could be used to buy some super nachos. Kenton eventually won the battle, but I won the bet! The thing I was most upset about was while we were duking it out with these Nacho Nazis, we missed some dude getting arrested after he jumped the fence and started making snow angels in right field...ugh! Later, I tried to convince Kenton to follow suit, but to no avail...I guess he didn't want to get his jammies all wet.
After three snow delays, the Mariners were batting in the 5th inning with two outs, the bases loaded and a 1-2 count on Jose Lopez when play was stopped- this time for almost 1 1/2 hours. We were denied the win-one out- make it one strike- shy of the game becoming official. Not to mention, Paul Byrd had a no-hitter going as well! UNBELIEVABLE!!!!
The main entertainment during these snow delays actually was watching the ground crew attempt to clear the field with a bunch of leaf blowers. Just when they would get a small section cleared away- 20 minutes later the grass was white again...talk about an effort in futility.
So this game- in the history books- never existed...but I'm telling you, I was there-in the snow- for a long, long cold afternoon/ evening....and enjoyed every minute of it.
2 comments:
Ah yes--brings back so many opening day memories! Trying to stay warm by way of jalapeños doesn't really work all that well, but I sure do miss those supper nachos!
I think Kenton set some kind of record in consuming his...seriously, like in 10 minutes he had the whole platter demolished. He told me his hands were freezing without his gloves on.
Did you hear, though, that we get to pick any ballgame later this summer since Saturday's make-up game was snowed out as well? A nice balmy June evening sounds good to me.
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