I took the kids to their (and my) first baseball game at Comerica Park today.
I’m not big into baseball, but the kids are. They know all the players on the Tiger’s roster and even have nicknames for some of them, (Sir Spits-a-lot I guess is a pitcher, but didn’t play this game, Bobble-Head, and, um, Mr. Idiot).
So, I finally bought tickets for the last home game of the season. Just getting tickets took me a good three hours. Not because it was a sold-out game or anything, but I wanted to get some good seats. We ended up behind the Visitor’s Dugout, 32 rows back. I was hoping to get closer, but I was also getting tickets for my parents and that was about it for five in a row. As it turns out, the park feels really small when you get into it and we had a good view.
Thanks to tips from friends, we knew were to get good free parking on the street. (We even ran into them while parking—not literally, of course!) Then when walking a couple blocks to the park, we ran across a set for some movie or TV series they’re filming in Detroit. My mom was like, “something happened here”, looking at rubble and a burnt-out car smashed by a neon sign. I told her it was just a set. (We later came across a small field with several cars in it—some shiny and others in various stages of disrepair. My mom thought it was some guerilla art, but I told her it was just props.)
At the park, the kids got their faces painted, rode the carousel and Ferris Wheel, got hot dogs, and settled in for the game. The temperature was great, it didn’t rain, and the Tigers won. We then lined up to run the bases, (the kids anyway as I wouldn’t pass as “under 14”). I thought William understood what “running the bases” meant, but the look on his face when he actually got that we were heading down to the field was priceless. After that we rode the People Mover, (elevated train), around downtown, had a nice dinner, and called it a night.
No, I’m not a baseball convert, but it was a really fun day. Next year we’ll have to go to Ford Field.