Uncle Al thinks his niece just threw a strike
A few decades ago, we took our oldest son to the inaugural game of the Colorado Rockies while my husband was in Denver on business. Folks were ecstatic the entire time, dressed in the new purple attire and standing up in their seats and cheering when they weren’t standing up in their seats and dancing. It was impossible not to absorb that energy! He was not much older than my granddaughter Mary Jane at the time, and I never knew baseball could be so much fun!
I attended Orange Grove’s Bingo for the Grove in August and snagged a few auction items, including tickets for the Lookouts. Unbeknownst to me initially, those tickets included a celebratory first pitch. My husband and I had the same idea at the same time: Mary Jane!
My granddaughter had recently been to a Lookouts game and surprisingly, loved it!
"They have ice cream!” she exclaimed. We could only imagine her reaction would be over the first pitch!
Her parents schooled her on what that first pitch entailed, and on the way to the game, she clasped my hand and whispered, “I want you to go out there with me.” I did not say there was no way I was going out on that field and throwing a ball if she stonewalled because as a grandmother, I have to be my best self, which is brave. However, I planned to threaten her father and uncle and grandfather if it came to that.
It didn’t. There were several first pitches, and her uncle and dad were the perfect ball boys/coaches. The crowd cheered, and several folks hollered her name during the first two innings saying, “Mary Jane! Great pitch!” She beamed.
Uncle Al fell for her “I need to go to the bathroom ploy,” and they returned with a massive neon blue slushie and a Louie doll, which is Lookouts baseball player doll and her only male toy.
Louie is her prize and has gone to school with her every day since. “He’s my boy,” she says, noting he is very active.
This final game of the season was during the horrific drought, when the promise of rain evaporated before clouds could even form. So when the skies opened up and rain so thick and solid pelted the stands, we fled for cover and mingled about until it stopped. Mary Jane recognized one of her classmates and walked right up to her, not speaking, just smiling as she clutched Louie. After a good while, we went back to our seats and watched dozens of people pull back the massive cover that was protecting the field. Back and forth, they folded it like a blanket, doubling back time and again, until they ultimately called the game. However, they kept the music going and the beer flowing.
Mary Jane made a couple of friends and as the stands emptied, they roamed back and forth and up and down, climbing and jumping and chasing like Louie surely would if he were actually a real boy.
We sat in our seats as Sunday afternoon drifted into evening and drank beers in white bats and munched on hot dogs as we watched children play. The legendary Babe Ruth said, “Baseball was, is, and always will be the best game in the world to me.” I get that. Maybe not exactly in the way he meant it, but I get that 100 percent.
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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.
Ferris Robinson