Baseball, etc.

Hello loyal internet followers... um, judging from the last post's "contest," that's just Erin and Joe. Hey guys. Miss you both. So due to a lack of interest from nearly everyone on the planet, I am calling off the contest and keeping the prize for myself.

But I am not glum for lo, I bring you great tidings of awesome adventures! And what better way to start off a blog post full of scintillating tales than with a not-so-scintillating tangent? So yeah, before we get to my cool baseball story, you guys should know that I managed to actually have my parents come visit for nearly a week while maintaining my veneer of adulthood! Yes, on their way back from a ridiculously great vacation in Italy for their 25th wedding anniversary (nice!), I got a nice long visit (that happened to coincide with a week-long Sam absence due to a family reunion so the parentals didn't even need a hotel). Smooth, right? Unfortunately, that smoothness vanished pretty much the instant mom and dad set foot back in the US of A: mom lost her camera with ALL the Italy photos on the cab ride from the airport, Leonard behaved abysmally without his Sam around, I (as previously described) am not the best hostess in the world, and I managed to lose my phone on the bus. However, we rallied and had a great time anyway, and the nicest bus driver in the history of the Metro Transit Authority actually hunted me down through my contacts list so he could return my phone to me! What's that, internet? You'd like to see the paltry few photos I took of this visit? Anything for you, hot stuff (Oh, and I now realize you can make pictures bigger by clicking on them! I feel like such a fool. So you should totally do that from now on):

The weary travelers taking a load off in the new Times Square gimmick: turning closed down city blocks into resting areas with cheap plastic lawn chairs. It's tacky, but a really good idea.

This is how I feel about Times Square pretty much every time I have to go there, which, being a theatre person, is more often than most people.

Dad actually managed to cook us a 4th of July feast in my tiny apartment!

Aaaaaaaaaand that's all I've got. Sorry mom and dad. Anyway, the reason all that is moderately related to the real subject of this post is that the three of us took the Staten Island Ferry in order to see the Statue of Liberty (if any of you ever visit, seriously the best thing in NY. I heart the Staten Island Ferry), and it was on that trip that I discovered the existence of the Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, home of the Staten Island Yankees. Both Dad and I are pretty sure that this might be the most beautiful ballpark ,and the longest name, in minor league baseball. Don't believe me? Check out the official photo:

Yeah, that's the New York harbor and Manhattan in the background. Sorry Aquasox, but you just got served. So ever since mom and dad left I've been dying to go see a game there. I mean, it's cheap, it's beautiful, it's baseball, what's not to love?

Now I realize that my internet readers, who shall be called Erin-and-Joe-Public from now on, or EJP for short, may not be aware of my strange relationship with America's past time. Allow me to explain: growing up an uncoordinated, chubby book-a-holic in a little league family caused me to hide my odd baseball opinions for many years, afraid of the inevitable mockery. While my brothers constructed a whiffle-ball diamond in the backyard (complete with foul poles and backstop) and had summer long tournaments, I had a baseball obsession of a different sort, a more... geeky.... sort. I loved the idea and history of baseball, and left the actual game of it to those more athletically inclined than I. While the family was off at little league games and practices, I would snuggle into the couch and secretly watch my dad's vhs bootlegs of the Ken Burns nine hour documentary Baseball, which he had meticulously taped off of PBS, skipping the commercials. Seriously. I devoured baseball books from the library, particularly ones involving the brief girl's league famously chronicled in A League of Their Own, and anything at all by W.P. Kinsella. His Shoeless Joe is without a doubt my favorite book in the world (I'm not exaggerating, I would not jest about such things) and continues to be the biggest influence on my writing style. I've read it at least once a year since I was 12, so I must be up to 11 to 13 readings now. The first three paragraphs for you, blatantly stolen from googlebooks:

My father said he saw him years later playing in a tenth-rate commercial league in a textile town in Carolina, wearing shoes and an assumed name.

“He’d put on fifty pounds and the spring was gone from his step in the outfield, but he could still hit. Oh, how that man could hit. No one had ever been able to hit like Shoeless Joe.”

Three years ago at dusk on a spring evening, when the sky was a robin’s egg blue and the wind as soft as a day-old chick, I was sitting on the verandah of my farm home in eastern Iowa when a voice very clearly said to me, “If you build it, he will come.”

Um, amazing, right? And yes, that book did eventually become Field of Dreams. You're so smart, EJP. What's that? A little clip? Only for you, EJP:

So yeah, I really really love baseball culture, apparently enough to send me off on my second lengthy tangent of this post... sorry everybody.

Where were we? Ah yes: Staten Island. So yesterday Sam and I head off to the ballpark, for what we assume will be a sunny afternoon of hot dogs, delirious Yankee fans, and baseball. We were mostly right. Our trip begins with another ride on the glorious Staten Island Ferry, and since I remembered my camera this time, here's the obligatory shot of Lady Liberty:

You actually get much closer than that, but all those photos turned out blurry and partially blocked off by an extremely tall Asian man. Grr. We were treated to several large tankers nearly destroying several very stupid sailboats, and all in all it was a most eventful passage. Upon our arrival we discovered that our seats were right next to what is apparently a season long promotion by Wendy's, offering all you can eat hamburgers and a free hat to large groups. A great idea, which I hope to take advantage of soon. Our view, while lovely, was of Brooklyn instead of Manhattan (see below) and Sam and I decided that next time, we would spring the extra three bucks to get the good seats behind home plate. Here's our view:

Yeah, more than enough for a great day at the ballpark. That big black thing is apparently the old scoreboard (there's a fancy high tech one outside of the picture, to the left), and I'm not sure if they've left it there for the batter's benefit or if they have some plan for it. Either way, I was a little sad that there was a pointless black box in the middle of that great view, but I'm picky like that. It had been agreed ahead of time that Sam would root for the home team Staten Island Yankees, as they are a farm team of the real Yankees and thus evil and thus I cannot root for them, while I would be cheering on the Brooklyn Cyclones, a farm team of the Mets. My team managed to get a six run lead in the first inning due to the Yankees having what must be the worst infield in the league. I can't imagine any of those guys getting the call up to the big show after THAT particular game, that's for sure. But Sam and I were having a grand time, drinking cheap beer in the sun with a nice harbor breeze, spying on the locals (highlights: a New Jersey boy scout troop, an embarrassing mother with a hand-painted pink baseball glove, and Mysterious Comb-Over Man), when out of nowhere the heavens open up and drench us. Being Seattleites, we tried to brave it out, but the deluge soon grew to strong and we had to retreat to the one tiny patch of awning not already taken up by the rest of the crowd. We ended up having to retreat two more times, causing over an hour of rain delays. But there was a rainbow! And watching storms over Manhattan is really freakin' cool. And there was cheap beer.

That's the rainbow over that crane-ship-thing (which Sam now tells me is a dredging ship. That's pretty cool. Says Sam: "It's like that book, Mike Mulligan's Steam Shovel, only for underwater!"). Alas, just as the rain was letting up I got a text asking me to come into work very early the next day. With all the delays and the lengthy commute we would not have arrived home until about 1 or 2 in the morning if we'd stayed through the end of the game, so we decided to head home while our spirits were so high and there wasn't any lightning on the water. I'm not a big lightning fan, to be honest. (Says Sam: "Yeah, you're worse than Leonard." Don't worry EJP, I punched him for that.) Plus, I managed to get a lovely shot of the Manhattan skyline as the ferry came in:

I suppose if Sam and I were different people, or if we had been in a different mood yesterday, that could have been a "wrecked" afternoon. But we are not those kinds of people, and we were feeling fabulous all day, and thus we had one of our favorite adventures so far. I can't wait to go back with more friends and teach those whiney hippies all about the wonders of a good day at the ballpark.

Love to all