Professional Sport Date Day

We’re on Spring Break all this week (actually, I’m on Spring Break and Mr. R. is taking a week’s vacation) and being short on fundage, we are being creative as we find interesting things to do.  Occasionally, he received free passes to events from his work and fortunately for us, he had tickets to Spring Training baseball.  And so it was that on Sunday, Mr. R. and I took in a Spring Training baseball game between the Miami Marlins and the Detroit Tigers at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter.  The Marlins are the home team, obviously.

The only point of reference I have for the Tigers is that Thomas Magnum played for them before he became a P.I.  (Was that before or after the Navy?  Who knows?)

I’m sorry.  What were we talking about?  Oh.  Baseball. Okay, so the tickets were free.  But we had to pay $6 to park.  Six dollars!  Did I mention that we’re so broke right now we can’t pay attention?  Anyway, we found a spot to abandon the F-150 and hiked about a mile from there to the stadium, where the game had already begun.

Before we found our seats, we stopped for our only purchase, a huge soda that we shared.  It was worth it.  The day was absolutely beautiful, bright and sunny, the temperature around 80, low humidity, and a breeze that kept it from being hot, even in the sun.  Our seats were on the first base line, my favorite area, because we read from left to right, of course.  You do have to pay attention, though, because every now and then a ball comes flying your way.

I’m not a huge fan of any sport, really, but it’s always fun to attend a live sporting event.  There’s always more to watch other than the game.  I love the guy selling water.  “Got your ice cold watah, heah!”  I tried to tell him, “Dude, there’s an r in there.”

At one point when the Marlins were at bat, Mr. R. said to me, “That’s him.  That’s Giancarlo Stanton.  He’s got a contract to earn $325 million over the next thirteen seasons.”  I did the math.  The first calculator I picked up didn’t have enough places, I had to use a different one.  That’s twenty-five million dollars a year.  For hitting a ball with a stick.  And that’s all he did, too.  He made it to first base where another guy replaced him, on the off chance he might have to run more bases.  I am definitely in the wrong line of work.

We had a great time.  I am just dorky enough to stand up and sing during the seventh inning stretch, although I declined all the participatory songs.  The Marlins were ahead 4-2 by the middle of the ninth inning so the game was over.  We gathered up our souvenir Marlins Spring Training cup and schlepped back to the truck.  That’s probably our only baseball outing this year unless more free tickets make their way into our hands, but I’m glad we went.  It was a perfect day to be outside and I didn’t have to go to work today.