I don’t remember field trips like this when I was a kid. Check that: in seventh grade, our class trip was a visit to Cooperstown. Not only did we enjoy the Baseball Hall of Fame, but the Farmer’s Museum, too.
No farmers today; just baseball. The young miss and her many, many … many classmates took in a delightful afternoon of AAA baseball in Des Moines. I volunteered to chaperone. It’s an interesting experience, floating in that sea of adolescent enthusiasm, joy at being out of school.
It was a perfectly beautiful day for baseball: super sunny, temp in the mid-sixties, lots of laughing happy children. Taking a 6th grader is actually pretty easy. She has her own money for snacks and drinks. She has the stamina for a full game. I noticed one dad with a four-year-old asleep in his lap. As I looked at my own daughter, I didn’t really feel a twinge or anything for when she was young enough to fit in my lap. I’m glad I have a young lady, nearly a teenager. We had a good time chatting at the post-game snack. At the moment, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
As for the game, Kyle Reynolds made three MLB-quality plays at third, saving two sure hits when the game was still fairly close. A collection of Cub pitchers took a no-hitter into the sixth, but I doubt it was getting much notice. Most of the 7,000 fans in attendance were school kids. The rest of the students had to ditch the game by the seventh inning to get back to the campus, but since I had my car at hand, the young miss and I enjoyed the end of the game, and a little dad-and-daughter bonding time. There was a little doubt–I think part of her wanted to bus back to school with her friends. But she was a good sport to hang out with dad.
Along the inner colonnade, the stadium has banners of the other twenty-nine AAA teams. I found one for my boyhood team. This image did come out full-size with the young miss doing cell camera duty. Too bad I didn’t check the setting before snapping the above shot of Principal Park.
Ahhh, the Rochester Red Wings. I spent many a fine hour at the park, having a beer and eating a hot dog at Silver Stadium, watching the up-and-coming Cal Ripken, Jr. play some fine ball.
You can’t beat minor league baseball. One of my earliest memories was of children scattering from their hillside perch beyond the right field fence when a not-yet-famous Mickey Mantle crushed a ball in their direction. (Yes, I’m that old.) Mantle, and a few other future Yankees, played for the class C Joplin (Missouri) Miners. Few of those class C teams exist today and Miners Park is long gone.
What a great story, Randolph! Being a bit younger than thou, I had the great pleasure of seeing a young (well, he’s still pretty young) Prince Fielder crush a baseball into the night for the minor league Beloit (WI) Snappers. Only a few years ago.