Saturday with the Lansing Lugnuts

Yesterday, Computer Boy, Skate Kid and I went to see the Lansing Lugnuts, who are the Class A farm team of the Toronto Blue Jays, play the West Michigan Whitecaps. It was a nice sunny day with the temperature in the 70's. As an added bonus, I even saw someone wearing a Mark Fidrych jersey. There were not more than 400-500 people there and this is a symptom of the ailing Michigan economy. The Lugnuts play at Oldsmobile Park and ironically the name itself is a symbol of the problem.

Anyway, somewhere around the second inning, Skate Kid who is 6 years old said that he would like to catch a baseball. We were 5 or 6 rows behind the dugout which is a nice spot for foul balls but obviously this is hit or miss.

I looked out to the hill beyond the left field fence and as usual, there were quite a few people out there as this hill connects to the party deck. The right field hill however only had 4 people sitting near the very top of the hill. I have seen a few batted balls make it to the top of the hill but the great majority of home runs out there land well below the top of the hill. I told Skate Kid that we would go out to the right field hill and see what happens. Computer Boy is quite a bit older than Skate Kid and can watch himself and decided that he would stay at the seats.

We were not out there more than 15 minutes when Skate Kid got his baseball. When we returned to the seat, Computer Boy said "Dad, you did not even try to catch it. You just let the ball bounce over to you." He wanted to see a "catch".

In the 2 rows in front of our seats, there were approximately 15 young ladies having a bachelorette party. I was mostly watching the game of course but did notice that they were playing scratch-off card and bingo-type games and also games with Vegas-style chips. A few were drinking alcohol but most were not. Nice ladies.

One thing I did notice is that these bachelorette parties are MUCH more calm than bachelor parties. No testosterone to mess things up.