Playing for Freedom

Coop and I took in a Florence Freedom game last night.  He really wanted to go to a baseball game and ended up picking which one based on the mascots.  Thanks to a friend, we had two seats that were four rows back from the dugout and had a great time.

It'd been a while since I'd been to a "professional" baseball game.  It's still leaning towards the notasport on my sport/notasport scale, but it's a nice outing to go on with my little t-ball player.

 

I was really impressed with how nice and how clean their stadium was kept.  It took me a few looks before I realized that their entire field was fake turf.  I'd never seen baseball played on a field that even had the bases and pitcher's mound made of anything but dirt.  It actually seemed to work really well.  They didn't brush off the plate once and at no point did they have to re-line the base path.

 

Here is a pic of Cooop on the way to the game...I sort of thought he'd look like this on the ride home.

We were about an hour early because Coop was so excited to get there that he talked me into having us eat there instead of stopping on the way.  Ticket prices were reasonable (our tix were free thanks to Stuart) and it was $1 night for hot dogs, popcorn and drinks.  Turns out those prices were only for one stand on the other side of the stadium...and they didn't sell popcorn or hot dogs...I'm guessing they figured out that that was a problem later.

 

They played the National Anthem on the organ while I taught Cooper to look around and judge the people who didn't take their hats off.

 

And then the game began.

A couple of highlights - There's a guy named Rocco who works near the first base concession stand that will occasionally give a little kid a baseball...and Coop had his signed by a real live baseball player.

Coop met the Eagle, Belle and #25 in your program, but #1 in your heart.  And we saw a sacrifice fly that ended up being the game decider.  A great night with Cooper, I highly recommend it...