End-of-season send-off for the local heroes

The other night, we attended the last game of the (pre-playoff) season for our local minor-league baseball team, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Because of various trips to the bathroom and Pad-Thai-takeout along the way, we didn't get to the stadium until the 7th inning. At the ticket office, the young man asked me how many tickets we needed. I said we needed three - I assumed Madeleine would sit on my lap. He pulled out a roll of tickets, counted out three, and told me that since it was Fan Appreciation Night and we had missed so much of the game anyway, we could have these tickets for free. We were quite happy.

I was wondering why the section where our seats were seemed so unfamiliar. I assumed it was because they were probably about a mile beyond first base - you get what you pay for, after all... But I was wrong; they were so unfamiliar because they were at the very epicenter of the stadium, right behind home plate. This was quite unprecedented.

To our astonishment, the home team won. We have attended four games this summer (and never, before then), and this was the first time that they won. Then we had the fireworks show. As usual, I covered Madeleine's ears, but the boys enjoyed it.

Because it was the last night of the season, there was extensive sentimentality. The team stopped and waved goodbye to the fans before going back to the lockers. All the merchandise was wonderfully marked down. A lady pushing a cart of Poland Spring water back to whereve these things come from, stopped us after the game to talk about how beautiful Madeleine was. Some girl who worked in the stadium came by and gave the boys those glow-in-the-dark sticks for free. Everyone was happy.

When we got out, the boys insisted on waiting for the shuttle bus. In the meantime, they were tossing their glow-sticks, bent into ring formation, into the air. I was impressed and chagrined that Daniel managed to toss his up something like twenty feet into the air, where it got caught on one of the lights over the ticket windows. Luckily, there was a circle of very friendly, spirited young people, mostly guys, standing there. They were already somewhat intrigued by the Kinder, but when they saw that the glow-stick was stuck, they took turns taking running leaps at the overhead light, to liberate Daniel's glow-stick, using as an implement one of those awful flashlight-sticks that they sell in the stadium - kind of like a light-sabre, to use a Star Wars merchandise term from the 1970's (my childhood), only without the sword - just a stick. The stick belonged to a girl in the group, who lent it out for the purpose, and there was some running critique from the small crowd about how best to capture the glow-ring.

Finally, one of the guys pointed out that they had "a ladder," and they pulled over to the site of the ring-loss a bicycle rack from the edge of the plaza - a bit of advertising provided by a bike shop down the road. Two guys figured out how to use the bike rack plus the glowing wand to unhook the ring, and it worked. Within a minute, the bike rack was back at the edge of the complex, the glowing red ring was in a happy Daniel's hand, we thanked our fellow fans, and we were headed off to the parking lot.

However, that certainly wasn't the end of the story. A guy who worked in the stadium told us that the shuttle bus was parked for the night which meant that we got to walk back to our parking space. To my Scottish delight, we had found a free spot; to the boys' chagrin, it was about a third of a mile from the stadium. So they staged a protest. Daniel lay on the sidewalk and announced that he needed to be carried (I was already carrying Madeleine, which was doubtless part of the problem). Eventually, Ian joined in. I found myself at a busy intersection, with two boys sitting/lying on the ground nearby, Madeleine in my arms, and a passing motorist remarking, "Boy, you've really got your hands full!" (I hear that a lot.)

After a protracted protest, the boys re-joined the trek, although we negotiated a bit of symbolic boy-carrying (in addition to Madeleine - I was a compound beast of burden), but eventually we made it back to the car, and ended a very happy evening where the home team won and we got to see them off at the end of a lively season.

(September 2, 2010)