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On a whim Friday night, with Annie being out of town, the guys decided out of the blue to see if the Rockies were in town tomorrow. They were! They were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. We decided to get tickets and go. Matthew was excited. "I'm going to bring my glove-maybe I'll catch a fowl ball!" he said in traditional 10-year old boy excitement.p863650059-2
We arrived at the park well ahead of game time. I enjoyed sitting in the glow of the ball park, having not been to Coors Field in some time. It's a beautiful park-a nice mix of old style and new comforts. Matthew's eye was caught by every distraction strategically placed between the entrance and our path to our seats. Me being who I am - focused on finding our seats and getting situated - encouraged him to stay with me... "we can come back later if you still want to," was the bone I threw him.

Before the game started, Matthew was a little disappointed he didn't get to go to the pitching cage, batting cage, have players autograph his glove or participate in any of the other mayhem going on at the ball park. To make matters worse, he saw the big net behind home plate to catch fowl balls, took note of our seats (they were great, but he didn't know it-between home and third base in the Wells Fargo Club level) right on the edge of the net, and heard someone say the only fowl balls that came over here were from lefty batters. He pessimistically speculated that no one was a lefty on either Colorado or Pittsburgh, and he may as well just go home.

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The second pitch of the game, the lead-off hitter for the pirates fowled a ball... high, high, ever so high, back, back-right above us... a gentleman 2 rows in front reached his hand up. The ball smacked his palm so hard I'm sure you could hear it in Pittsburgh. Bouncing off his red, wounded hand over to the very edge of the precipice our seats were perched on, the little white orb was poised at the brink of rolling out of our lives forever. Suddenly, a nice young man sitting next to us scrambled right, grabbed the ball before it fell to the next level and handed it to Matthew. "There you go, kid."

I'd fulfilled my obligation as a dad, and my rather speculative promise during the trip to the camera store (see post above). And the Rockies killed the Pirates. It was a very good night.