Waxing Romantic About Baseball...

There is something romantic about baseball (to me anyway) and something in particular about amateur and minor league baseball.  The warm summer nights at a ballpark, families enjoying each other and relaxing in the pace of the game at hand, kids scrambling for foul balls, sausage and peppers wafting through the air, and maybe an occasional beer to wash down a good hot dog or bag of peanuts makes life seem simple and easy. 

Every time I watch Bull Durham it takes me back to when I moved down to Virginia to start my first "official" job out of college with Newport News Shipbuilding.  I saw the movie and just wanted to go to the ballpark to watch ball games when ever I could.  I got to see the Norfolk Tides quite a bit (back then the New York Mets AAA affiliate, now the AAA affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles) and the Peninsula Pilots (then a Class A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners, now part of the Coastal Plains League ... which as I read it sounds a bit like an independent, mid-Atlantic version of the Cape Cod Summer League).  Makes me want to spend most of my summer living down on Nags Head, NC and going to ball games all over VA and NC with the occasional jaunt back to New England to see the Paw Sox, the Portland Sea Dogs, or the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.


The Lord knows I love the Red Sox (even though they are stinking to high heaven right now) but baseball itself is a joy to watch and be a part of.  And like I said I've had the good fortune to live in areas where there was plenty of minor league baseball (southeastern Virginia, here in New England) and it's a blast to take in a game.  I'm looking forward to some warmer weather and taking in some ball games!  Whether it's the Paw Sox down here, the Sea Dogs when I'm "down Maine" over the summer, who cares!  It will be summer time and baseball baby!  And maybe, just maybe, if I am good I'll get to take in a Harrisburg Senators game down in PA when Kendell heads off to school in August.  As the Beach Boys wrote "wouldn't it be nice"...