Going to the Ballpark

When I was a kid, everything revolved around baseball.  My Dad’s favorite team for some reason was the Baltimore Orioles.  I never figured that one out, except they did have one year when they had four 20 game winners. That is very rare. They also had Brookes Robinson and Boog Powell.   I, on the other hand, was a Brooklyn Dodger fan.  Again, I am not sure why, except they were always in the World Series trying to beat the Yankees who I really didn’t like.  During that time, we were able to watch the World Series games in school.  I remember them suspending classes so we could watch the games.  How cool is that.  I played little league also and imagined myself eventually playing in the majors.  One of the best things to do in the Summer was go to the ballpark with your friends.  Wichita had a AAA team called the Wichita Indians.  They were affiliated with the Cleveland Indians.  We could go to the downtown ballpark and watch the Indians play.  Unfortunately, that was only one game… normally and the only way to extend that was to hope for extra innings.  That didn’t happen very often.  The best thing was that they held a national baseball tournament at the Wichita ballpark and teams came there from all over the country.  You could go early in the day and watch a bunch of games all day into the night.  Sometimes you could see three or four games on one visit.  This is a kid’s dream.  My parents would drop us off at the ballpark and we would hang out all day.  Eat popcorn, and hot dogs, and cracker jacks and run all over the park.  Always hoping to snag a foul ball.  We didn’t know the teams and didn’t really care who won, it was all about just going all over the ballpark and sitting in different seats, etc.  We always took our gloves just in case we might have a shot at a foul ball. We would be watching different games and if there was a rally we could get involved.  If there was a close play we could cheer and if someone had a big hit in the late innings, we could make some noise.  Later in the evening I would call my parents and they would come and pick us up.  What a day.  The tournament lasted for about two weeks so we usually made plans to go a few times.  The only thing in our way was playing our own little league games.  Clearly those were a priority.  I remember those days at the ballpark and the experience was so great.  To a kid who loved baseball there was nothing better.  I don’t ever remember having any problems at the park.  We kept to ourselves and stayed out of everyone’s way.  I wonder if you could do this kind of thing today.  They probably have rules that would prevent this from happening.  They wouldn’t let you go anywhere in the park, sit in any seat that was open, and be unsupervised for hours and hours.  They might not even let you in without an adult today.  Times change.  I look back at how great those times were.