At the suggestion of a new friend, I felt compelled to start a blog about my baseball story and how I came about finding a love for life again through baseball.
In April of this year, I found myself divorced after 14 years of marriage. I was lost and for the first time in my adult life I was alone with lots of time to spare.
I had heard an ad on the radio on a Monday in mid-May about fireworks on Friday at a local ballpark after a baseball game. I recall thinking all week about how much I'd really like to watch fireworks, but how would I endure sitting through a baseball game! A game I knew nothing about...a game I had cursed the previous summer because my then husband had spent hundreds of dollars on a baseball cable package where you can watch every live game as it plays out on television.
Friday arrived and as I entered the stadium at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson there was an excitement in people's faces. There were a couple of players signing autographs in the breezeway near the entrance to the stands and I remember thinking that was really cool. I had purchased my box seat ticket for $10 and sat behind homeplate by myself. At the end of the game, the announcer reminded fans to stay for the fireworks show and he was excited to tell the crowd to return on Saturday night as the team was going to play again. I had no intent to sit home alone that weekend so I purchased my ticket for Saturday's game through ticketmaster when I got home that night.
Saturday nights game intrigued me. Lots of fans, lots of people, more so than the prior night. But I still had no idea what was going on in the game. I liked watching the 3rd base coach give hand signals to the runners and spent the game trying to decifer what he was doing. I sat close enough to hear the batter exchange words with our catcher. There was a group of people who had attended the previous night and I remembered them because an older man was telling the batter for the opposing team to take his bat and go home to his "mommy" and I thought that was funny.
At the end of Saturday's game, an announcement was made for fans to return on Sunday - it was $1 hot dog day. I felt compelled to return. Sunday then turned into Tuesday.
I attended 24 home games this summer at our local ball park. My interest in baseball grew as I met more people involved in the sport and the baseball experience. I read the book Moneyball and I was hooked. I rode the booster bus across the desert from Tucson to Yuma on one of the hottest days of the summer on July 3rd - to watch baseball who knew! This summer I made it to Fenway, a ballpark where the excitement is so loud you can't carry on a conversation with the person next to you and it's ok, it's acceptable. It's part of the experience. Fenway, a place where I grew up just 20 miles outside of, yet never had a desire to step foot inside the stadium. Fenway was a blast, but I have to admit I was anxious to get back to Tucson where I could see and hear the plays close up. I had to learn as much as I could about this game and I was starting to recognize the local players names and the positions they played. I started to come alive and I was on my way to finding myself again through a passion for the game.
