Take Me Out To The Ballgame

• Mom: Do you guys want to go to a baseball game; it’s Bark in the Park night?  
• Tobie: Is that the game that moves really slow? The game that you just watch everyone standing around? I don’t know, what do you think Mickey?
• Mickey: Well, if we get to sit with mom, eat and watch a lot of people throwing balls, it could be really fun.
• Tobie: Ok, we are up for it.

Mom’s grandpa and grandma loved baseball. In fact, the Cincinnati Reds were their favorite team. Maybe they will tell you more about that in a later post. Mom said they would have really gotten a chuckle out of our experience. We really do feel blessed to live in a family that shares all kinds of life experiences with us.  Mom is always trying to find places that we can come along and why not, who wouldn’t want us to always tag along?  So one pretty cool thing Mickey and I got to do is go to a professional baseball game.  We got to watch the Cincinnati Reds.  If I can remember correctly, here is how the story goes. 

Road Trip To Cincinnati

One afternoon, we dressed in our Cincinnati Reds baseball jerseys.  Mom got everything packed and loaded into the car with a bunch of our stuff, the really important stuff (food, snacks, toys, and of course water).  But anyway, we were told we were going to the baseball game.  We weren’t sure what we were getting into but we were up for the experience.  We always enjoy a good road trip, we usually end up somewhere fun.  But today, we found ourselves in a lot of traffic heading into the city.  Hey Mom, this is not a good road trip, no air in my ears, just a lot of fumes and moving way too slow. 

After what seemed like forever creeping in traffic, Mom stopped the car.   A strange man came out of a box asking for money.  We barked at him – how dare you take money from us! But Mom said it was ok, he was going to watch our car for us.  Are you sure Mom, that is usually our job and we don’t even know this guy?  Seemed a little risky to us, but sometimes we just have to trust Mom, so we stopped barking at him.

Great American Balllpark

Ok everyone out of the car we have just a short walk to the stadium. The closer we get, Mickey and I start seeing more people and dogs.  What a coincidence that everyone thought tonight would be a great idea to bring their furry family members out to the ball park.  Thankfully before we entered the stadium there was a rest room – I mean a park – right across the street.  It was a very refreshing stop after the long car ride.  Ok, thanks for the pit stop Mom, now let’s get into the stadium.

 Mickey didn’t want me to mention the next part, so don’t tell him I did, but he met a “friend” on the way over to the stadium.  Minnie was a little black and tan female doxie who seemed very friendly.  Mickey said too bad their tickets were not closer to ours.  I said don’t worry Mick the night is young, but Mickey felt that it could have been a match made in heaven, Mickey & Minnie, seems familiar.  Mickey did say he was having a great time so far. 

Waiting…

We gets our tickets out and we are finally allowed into the ball park.  Wow, there’s a lot going on, so many new places to explore, food to eat, dogs to meet…  But Mom thinks that we should stand in a line, for what, I’m really not sure.  Are you crazy, Mom?  Why are we just standing here, it’s hot and we don’t really see the point. 

After a while, the line starts moving, and looks like things will get worse.  What is this all about?  Where could we be going?  It seems like it’s going to be a long walk, then all of the sudden the line has us leave the stadium (what the heck, you just paid money to get INTO the stadium?) Mom what kind of line is this?  You have really messed up, I don’t think we have extra tickets to get back in, how disappointing.  Then Mickey and I both get picked up and carried.  We didn’t mind, it was hot!  Was that the whole thing?  What about the players, the food, throwing balls… but we had just got there and now we were leaving.

Wait a minute, we’re turning the corner down into a tunnel.  What”s this? I turn to look at Mickey to see if he’s scared, but he’s ok and excited about the new direction we are heading.

Hey Mickey look up ahead, I see a light and what looks like the prettiest grass I have ever seen.  Why didn’t Mom wait and take us to the bathroom here?  This looks like a first class bathroom facility.  No wait, we are on the Cincinnati Reds baseball field, we are down with all the players.  How exciting!  Good thing Mom brought our jerseys, looks like we may see some action tonight.   I guess we had officially made it to the Big Leagues! 

Warming Up

Mom put us down so we could walk around the field ourselves while the players were warming up for the game.  The most exciting part was watching the players throw balls in every direction!  It looks like we will be taking a lap around the field so everyone could check us out.  No doubt Mickey and I would be the obvious choice for extra players even though some bigger dogs thought they were a shoe-in. 

We walked around the entire field and several players took notice of us, of course.  We crossed home plate wearing our official jerseys, we wondered if this could count as a few points for the Reds, they will probably need them.  Mickey was feeling really confident and tried to warm up in the batter’s box – you know just in case, but there was a lot of guys competing against him.

Great Seats!

The next thing we knew, Mom was taking us up into the stadium seats, guess they wanted to hide their secret weapons. Mom had to break the news and said we were just watching and not playing.  What! That is a huge mistake of the Reds.  Just as well with us, we needed some rest, we were pretty hot and tired.  We had great seats right on the end of a row up by the top of the section, very convenient to stop the man yelling, “Beer here!”  He was great, we got a lot of ice from him that night, I don’t know why he was calling the ice, beer?  

Friendly Ice Man 🙂

Anyway, this “beer” man had LOTS of free ice, and boy, was I hot.  So every time he walked by, I would stop him so I could get an ice refill.  I enjoyed eating ice out of my mom’s hand.  In fact, I ate ice for all three hours of the game.  When we left the ballpark, did I ever need to use the rest room!  Seems like that beer ice goes right through you.

Hello!

Our great seats also allowed me to say “Hello” to everyone who walked up or down the isle of my section.  You might say I was the “greeting committee” for our section.  I’m a friendly guy and I like meeting new dogs, so this was really fun for me – especially when you consider what a slow game baseball can be!  And boy, there were dogs in every shape and size, so there were a lot of new dogs to get to know.  Mickey said the only bad thing about our seats was Minnie was nowhere in site, just 2 golden retrievers in front of us and a morkie beside us.

One of our greatest fears…

Yep, we were really enjoying ourselves: we had Mom, our treats, a lot to watch and smell plus all the ice and water we needed.  We even had our own seats, but Mickey told me to look around.  He said, “Do you see what I am seeing?”  Oh my gosh, hot dogs in buns were being consumed everywhere, and some guy was yelling “hot dogs here!”  YIKES!!  Quickly Mickey and I jumped up on Mom’s lap, and boy, that’s where we stayed the rest of the night.  I don’t care how hot I am. I’m staying right here.  Good thing Mom put our jerseys on and left those bun costumes at home. 

Warmed Up, but Benched

Seems we were just getting comfortable and settling in and the next thing we know the game is over.  The Reds ended up losing but, Mickey said it wasn’t his fault, he was ready to help and they never called on him.  But, my brother, Mickey and I had a great time anyway.  It was a really fun evening, and except for the hot dogs, we got to experience a lot of new things. 

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Mickey ran into Minnie again on the way out of the stadium.  But unfortunately he didn’t get to talk to her, they were both too tired.  So, after stopping at the park again, I mean bathroom, we made our way back to the car. Mom was right, the man had done a great job watching the car.  I’m sorry to say I don’t remember too much about the ride home.  Mom said we fell sound asleep pretty fast.  I guess we were dreaming of the great memories we’d made at our first professional baseball game.

“Take me out to the ballgame”

Take me out to the ballgame,

Take me out to the grass.

Throw me a ball and some scrumptious snacks,

I don’t care if I ever get back,

Let me bark and howl for the home team,

I’ll scratch and eat some ice cream.

For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out.

At the old ballgame. ~Mickey & Tobie’s Version

Keep Rootin’

Tobie & Mickey