Ricochet

Last night was the night we take two kids from my wife's previous 4th grade class who bid on a Dodger Night with her to raise money for the school. This is a grab bag of kids as sometimes they are only interested in spending time with their teacher instead of being Dodger fans. Sometimes you get lucky and they are both Dodger fans and good kids. Last night we had good kids but they didn't know squat about baseball.

With kids in tow I had to park in the parking lot which I normally don't do and we were running late which happens when you have to drive around town picking up the kids and then trying to drive from the West San Fernando Valley to Dodger stadium. I thought we were in good shape when I finished parking as the first inning had just started.

While we walked through the parking lot I could hear the cheers, little ones at first and then a big resounding cheer and I knew we'd missed a home run. I figured Manny had hit another and was bummed we missed it. Herding someone's children is a strange exercise but we finally got them into the stadium as the last out of the 1st inning was made.

6 - 0 and I'd missed it all. So we settle in and I notice that Arizona is going down to the Card's and before the 2nd inning has begun it looks like our magic number has already been reduced to three games. 

So no worries and now we just needed to hope the kids were entertained. We had four guys behind us who felt the need to talk about their party days and all the woman they conquered during their heyday. If every other word hadn't been punctuated with the f word I wouldn't have cared. Without any kids around me I wouldn't have cared at all but we did have kids so my wife politely asked them to tone down the use of the f word  and they obliged for the most part.

For a 10 - 1 final score I saw very little that was interesting but in the 5th inning Manny inexplicably decided to throw his practice ball into the loge which never happens. We are in the third row and the ball sails a little to my right, two rows behind me, as I see where it is headed I'm thinking ricochet the whole time and sure enough it bounces off of their hands and I snag it over the heads of about 10 other outreached hands.

So now I have a Manny Ramirez ball and within a split second of catching the ball I knew I would have to give it to one of the two kids who doesn't know squat about baseball and couldn't name one person on the Dodger team. But like a good trooper I quickly give it to my wife who now has to decide which kid would get the ball. They are excited about the ball because everyone around is going crazy that I caught the ball.

As with everythiing she uses rock/paper/scissors to decide who should get the ball so they can take it home,  tell their friends, put it in a drawer and never use or see it again.

As for me I'm just glad I caught the ball and didn't fumble it. I'm two for two in catching balls thrown by ballplayers. I've yet to have a home run or foul ball come close enough to catch and I've probably been to over 500 games all over the park.

Three Games, I don't understand why everyone was worried. Dodger Sims has the new odds at 98% of a Division championship. Maybe I can watch them clinch Thursday Night.