Bump on a Blog

(Jeff here) Jen asked me to write about our baseball experience in Colorado. That's kinda my thing. It's been a few years since we had the opportunity to see a Major League baseball game, something we did quite a bit in our first few years of marriage.

The Atlanta Braves have been my favorite team since Dale Murphy was starring on a terrible Braves team in the eighties. My best friend and I both idolized him and I enjoyed the chance to watch whenever the Braves were on TV. In England, I would even stay up until 2am to watch games (time difference made them start MUCH later for me than people stateside, of course).

Anyway, a little TOO much background perhaps. I was really excited to see the Braves again and let my girls experience a professional game. There's nothing like it.

We bought tickets for two games while were there in Denver. Monday night we got to the park early (paid $10 for parking an another $36 for a less-than-stellar dinner of hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers and $5 drinks. Ouch). Kammi and I went down by the Braves dugout and got one of the Braves outfielders, Mark Kotsay, to sign her ball.

The game was a blast, but REALLY cold. Jen and the girls spent about 7 of the 9 innings up in the indoor club area while I braved (no pun intended, but it'd be cool if it was :)) the weather just enough to watch a 2-run home run by the Rockies sink my Braves in the 8th inning. It was 2 hours and 5 minutes, the shortest game in Coors Field history.

Game 2, Tuesday night, was much more comfortable. Before the game, Kammi and I once again went to the Braves dugout, and Kammi got one more autograph on her ball; Braves middle reliever Will Ohman. Not a great "autograph" haul, but we had fun.

Our seats were quite a bit further away and much less expensive, but we sat by a family with a lot of young girls, which kept ours quite occupied. In a later conversation with the Dad, it turned out they were from Pocatello (just down the road, and where Jen and I spent a good bulk of our marriage). He's a cop there, and tries to make it down for some games every year. It was pretty cool. Really nice people. Again, the Braves lost, this time by one run again, but we had a great time.

It's not about whether they win or lose, but that we SAW the game. I was happy regardless of the outcome.