Baseball

If you would have asked me a year ago, I would have said I did not like baseball. I probably would have told you that it is boring. On the rare occasion that I get dragged along to a baseball game, I take my book. Or my iPod. But that was a year ago.
Ben's favorite sport is baseball. I have been making an effort to find something likeable in baseball. I try to understand the game. I try to discover why it is exciting. I do this for Ben. After all, he always acts interested to see the newest pages in my scrapbook when I return home from a crop. Just when I think I understand, they throw in a dumb rule that makes no sense to me…like errors. I don’t understand errors.
I may not completely understand baseball, but I no longer think that it is boring. What cured me? Attending a ball game with the Hamilton’s. Here’s how it happened…
We were visiting Ben’s family in Pittsfield, MA over the July 4th weekend. On July 5th they took us to the Pittsfield Dukes baseball game. I almost brought my iPod, but Ben changed my mind. (He told me I couldn’t bring it). We found our seats. We bought our baseball game hotdogs. (That’s the one thing I used to enjoy about baseball – eating hot dogs at the stadium). We sang the National Anthem. The game began. And then, baseball became exciting. The Hamilton’s started cheering, and screaming, and blowing horns. Evan started the wave. Dad started a cheer. We all screamed and clapped and stood and cheered. I even got in a couple of cheers – much to Ben’s surprise. You have to understand, this was not just normal cheering. The ENTIRE ball park knew that we were in attendance and where we were seated.
Okay, I was a little shocked at how much noise our row was making. But I got over it. I even joined in. Then…Dad and Mom made a point of calling Duke the Mascot over to our section. They let him sit beside me, and then they took my picture! I don’t have to tell you that I was cherry red at this point! I think they enjoyed embarrassing me. Ben’s only comment was “I didn’t bring you to a baseball game with my family while we were dating. I wanted to secure you first!”
So…baseball is no longer boring. It is very exciting…if you go with the Hamilton’s!

This is Evan, Meredith, and Ben at the Baseball game.