Take Me Out To the Ballgame

Today Andrew Jeff and I were off to the ballgame. Our destination was the Salt River Stadium at Talking Stick Resort. Grandma got the directions from Map quest, it was a 28 minute drive from the house.  Note to self......don't trust map quest.
Regardless Jeffs natural radar kicked in with help from Andrew and we arrived at the right place.
It was pretty stinking hot and we were sitting in the sun all day. The plastic seats felt like hotplates! Ready to watch the Arizona Diamondbacks play the San Diego Padres.  Our seats were pretty much even with left field, or maybe it was right field?! Anyway, the field, and we were about 6 rows up from the level field. Pretty good seats.
Andrew was enjoying the game and we were making sure he drank lots of liquids.
Unlike tennis where if a ball goes out of the court spectators have to throw it back, in baseball fans keep the balls, in fact players often randomly toss balls into the audience and lots of kids and adults bring their own mitts to the game hoping for a catch. During a time between innings one of the Padres was tossing a ball to a youngster, the ball hit the wall and bounced up hitting ME on the forehead. The guy sitting next to me tried at the last second to deflect but missed! Of course the ball bounced off my head and back down to the field!  the Padres player was most concerned and was calling up to me to see if I was ok, several other stadium people also came to ask if I was ok. I realized we were in the country where sueing is big business!
The game continued and after 9 innings the score was tied 3/3. At this point a couple of the players were heading off the field to the lockers walking by our seating area. One of them was the player who had beaned me and as he came even with us he asked if I would like a bat and pulled one out of his bag. I must say I was about to ask if I could have a ball instead thinking it would be easier for Andrew to take home! Good thing I did not! The guy sitting beside me was horrified at that plan! Little did I know the value of the personalized bat! The Padres player had last year played for the LA Dogers and consensus was that he would be a fall of famer one day. The bat was engraved with his name MATT KEMP, his number etc. it was also covered in sticky pine pitch. Andrew very carefully and revlantly carried it out of the park to the admiring looks of many people. Several people spoke to us about the bat and we began to realize more fully that this was of great value. We were advised not to clean the pitch, to leave the bat as is, to place it in a protective case! I told Andrew one day he could sell it to a collector and have the down payment on his first house.
I could tell that was the furthest thing from his 15 year old mind!
Meanwhile the Diamondbacks and the Padres played a tenth inning which did not result in anymore runs for either team and the ballgame was over.
We arrived home just after 5pm and were on our way to Harolds bar for dinner and to listen to the blues/rock band the Arizona Blues Project. We had a table for 8 as friends, Preston, Nancy, Susan, Brian, and Ron were joining us.
It was a good evening, Andrew watched both a hockey game and our afternoon ballgame on the bar TVs and enjoyed the music.
I would say he definitely enjoyed his last day.....he is heading home to Vancouver tomorrow, we loved having him here!