Chris started playing on a softball league a couple weeks ago. It was a total fluke — a friend needed someone to fill out an already-made team and Chris was in the right place at the right time.
Summer is technically over, but down here, it feels like New York in July, with the same comfortably temperate, breezy evenings. Last Thursday, Chris had a 9 p.m. game and I went to sit on the bleachers and watch. I felt as if I’d stepped through the screen into Field of Dreams.
The way I feel watching baseball is not something I can easily put into words. My hometown had a minor league team, the Elmira Pioneers, that for much of my childhood was a farm team for the Boston Red Sox. Wade Boggs played at Dunn Field before anyone knew who he was. In high school, my friends and I would get free tickets from local businesses that bought up blocks of seats and spend our summer nights at the ball park. Dunn Field was built in the 1930s and hadn’t been updated much over the years. It was (and probably still is) absolutely beautifully historic. Some of my best memories are of that ball park.
So being at Chris’ game on Thursday was like stepping back in time as much as it was like stepping into a movie. There’s something romantic (in a nostalgic sense, not a candlelight and flowers sense) about the game, and a hometown game is even more so than a major league game.
I don’t exactly have this post organized in my head and I’m not even sure what my point is. But I know that sitting there watching that game in the evening under the ball field lights inspired me to whip out the little notebook my friend Dave gave me as a going-away present almost six years ago and write my thoughts. I loved every second of it.
And I will be right back there tonight. With my real camera and not just my cell phone.
I spent a bunch of Sunday’s this summer watching softball. There is something romantic as you say with the lights in a stadium. We were sitting under a sap dripping pine tree between the fence and a road, so it was less romance. Still enjoyable though.
YAYYY Elmira Pioneers! I remember going there with my grandpa often!
i grew up watching my dad play slow pitch softball. this year, i was on my first slow pitch team. that feeling… it’s almost indescribable. every awesome thing i did for the team i wanted to brag to him about. i’m such a daddy’s girl and this summer REALLY proved it even more. so i know what you mean about the nostalgia and bringing back memories and even old feelings. so. awesome.
I love hometown baseball games 🙂 Thanks for the memories!
Well, the photos look great, cell phone or not! It’s been chilly here but it’s supposed to be in the 80s this weekend. Whatever happened to mild fall weather???
The weather the last few years has been really weird. We went from boiling hot to freezing cold overnight, then from freezing cold to boiling hot overnight with no break for three months. It’s supposed to be high 80s the next few days after a week of 70s.
You know what I love? The very, very last scene of Traffic when Benicio Del Toro is watching a Little League game at the park. For some reason, I feel that scene is unforgettable. The colors, the sounds, the emotion.
I have never seen that movie.
Going to a game is fun by itself. Going to a game and someone you care about is playing? That’s pretty much heaven on earth. Our 10-year-old’s softball season is almost over, and I’m really going to miss it.
Thanks
This brings back great memories when my gramma and I sat on her porch listening to the games 1980’s thru 1990’s on baylor road. We came to games in the years, loved the field!!!! Thanks for that now that zi am 52 And she died early 1990’s!