Take Me Out to the Ballgame...

My friend Clover gave The Colonel, Spud and I free tickets to watch The Charlotte Stone Crabs' season opening game. They were playing against The Palm Beach Cardinals. This was my first minor league game (I had seen The Seattle Mariners play twice in the late 1980's when I took The Colonel's grandma to watch them. She was a huge baseball fan. The Seattle Mariners lost both games). Spud had never been to a baseball game and it had been a long time since The Colonel had been to one.

Our seats were near first base so we entered the sports park via this entrance.

Once inside the gate we made our way to the gift shop where we picked up our free Stone Crab ball cap. With caps in hand (or on head), we got in line for some food (hamburgers and fries for the guys and chicken tenders and fries for me). The Colonel also got a bag of peanuts (got to have those at a ballgame). We carried our food into the stadium and found our seats next to Clover's.

This was the view of the baseball diamond from our seats.

The Stone Crabs got three points early in the game, one being a home run. A few foul balls were hit in our general direction. One of the foul balls landed just two rows and two seats behind Spud. We forgot to bring any baseball gloves. We will next time. We all agreed that having seats at first base was great.

Between each inning Stoney, the team mascot, would do some sort of activity involving the crowd or someone from the crowd. In one instance Stoney raced a little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, from second base to home. The little girl ran like the wind and once looked back over her shoulder at Stoney. It was cute to watch. She won of course.

Clover and I had a ball. We cheered, clapped our hands to the music and shouted encouragement to the Stone Crab players. I noticed and thought it was kind of fun how the Stone Crab players had their own theme music as they stepped up to the plate. An Irish jig was heard when the player named Sweeney was at bat.

The 7th Inning Stretch had us all out of our seats and belting out the song, Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

The Stone Crabs got three more runs in before the game was over for a total of six runs to the Cardinals' three. I am so glad our team won, I did not want this game to end up like the Mariner games I had been to in the past (that would have given me an inferiority complex...like maybe I was an unlucky charm for any home team).

Go Stone Crabs!