Baseball Match
Two of the things on ‘our list’ of things we have wanted to
do on our time away in the states, was to see a baseball match, and to have a
meal in a traditional American Diner.
We found out that the Altoona Curves were playing in Altoona
on the night we were going to be there! To do this sort of thing requires a bit
of planning as we are limited as to when we have WiFi. Sometimes (quite a lot) we
have to resort to a McDonalds visit in order find things out ahead of time.
We’ve got into the habit of taking a screen shot on the ipad with any
information we think we will need.
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| Altoona Curves ground. |
We were well on time for the match until the Sat Nav took us
to the wrong end of the town. Once we had re-set it, we got to the ticket
office just as they were ‘at the bottom of the 3rd innings’,
whatever that meant! We established we hadn’t missed too much of the match, as
there are 9 innings per match. We parked Harvey and went back for tickets.
Now, before my dear husband tells you this, I will let you
know that after buying the tickets for half price (which Tim particularly was
delighted over), I asked if the ticket guy could give us a ‘little run down’ of
how to play baseball. At this point, my children WILL laugh! In fact my whole
family will! It will be considered (to my surprise) a ridiculous thing to ask
anyone that was selling tickets. Tim thought so too! In my defense, at the time
there was no queue. The guy, very politely told me he wouldn’t know where to
start because it’s a bit complicated.
We went into the stadium. I was so excited. This was
something I had always wanted to see. Tim had too. I could tell by his
hyperactivity as we walked in. We saw three spare seats next to a lady and
asked if they belonged to anyone. She said they were hers. Surely, she only
needed one….she wasn’t a big lady.
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| Our new VBF, Linda! |
It turned out that she had season tickets for all four
seats. Oh, now I get it (that will be a ‘Oh mum!’ from my kids)! She very
kindly said we could sit there though. Her name was Linda. She was a giggly,
lovely lady who explained all we needed to know about baseball. Thank you
Linda, you are a star!
We were really getting the hang of the game and the Altoona
Curves were thrashing the Metz! Tim was on the edge of his seat, keeping an eye
on all the electronic boards full of information about the present batsman and
the score. It was Timmy heaven! Every bit of information Linda was telling me,
I relayed to Tim as we went along. It was great.
At the bottom of the 7th innings (which is the
end) everyone in the stadium suddenly stood up. An old old music backing track
started to play over the speakers. People put their hands on where they thought
their hearts were and started to sing with gusto, ‘God Bless America’. The
words were on the screen so we pretended to sing along. We didn’t know the
tune, so sang quietly! I did, I really did. Linda turned and told us that its
called the ‘7th innings stretch’ and it happens at every baseball
match.
Throughout the match, there was the usual music and crowd
pleasers. Clap along. Shout. Count downs etc etc. It all helped to create a
good atmosphere.
The Altoona Curves won 7 runs to 0. A good win, and possibly
enough for them to get the league title.
Afterwards, there was a fairly long firework display,
started off by a musical duet between two of the Altoona mascots, Steamer and
Loco. (Altoona is a railway town). They both played piano, or was it a track?
We had thoroughly great evening. Now off to find Walmart for
the night.
