Play ball!

Well, it took him more than five months, but Dad finally discovered a silver lining to getting up in the middle of the night to feed me. Last night, thanks to my ridiculously good timing, the two of us were able to catch the opening game of the Major League Baseball season – Mariners-A’s, live from Tokyo, at 3:10 a.m. Seattle time.

These days, I usually get up once a night to feed. (Maybe once a week, I’ll sleep straight through the night and let Mom and Dad get a full night’s sleep.) The actual time I wake up varies, but it’s typically between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. Last night, I woke up at 2:45 – just enough time for Dad to feed me and change me, and then I sat in his lap while we watched the first inning of the game.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Dad had gone to sleep hoping that I’d wake up around this time. Every few years, Major League Baseball starts its season with two teams playing in Japan, and each time, the game starts in the middle of the night on the West Coast. And each time it does, Dad wakes up so he can catch an inning or two before going back to bed. It goes way back to 2000 – the first time MLB scheduled a game in Japan – when he and one of his college roommates (my Uncle Bam) got up in the middle of the night to watch.

Now, I was born in late October, so this was my first introduction to the glory and impotence that is Mariners baseball. And I’d like to think that what I saw in one inning pretty much captures the team as a whole: Chone Figgins grounded out weakly, Ichiro legged out an infield single, Jeff Smoak struck out, and Felix Hernandez looked great on the mound. As Dad told me as we watched, that’s Mariners baseball in a nutshell.

Anyway, I was touched that Dad wanted to include me in his little tradition, so I graciously fell right back to sleep as soon as he put me back in my crib at 3:30. He also promised that he’d take me to at least a couple of M’s games this summer, once the weather warms up. So I did some research on just what makes a trip to the ballpark so great. I think the exchange below sums it up nicely:

Lisa: I can’t think of a better place to spend a balmy summer’s night than the old ball yard. There’s just the green grass of the outfield, the crushed brick of the infield, and the white chalk lines that divide the man from the little boy.

Homer: Lisa, honey. You’re forgetting the beer. It comes in 72-ounce tubs here.