A Boy and a Baseball Game

Close to the end of last month, my dad told me that a small group from their church was going down to Little Rock to see the Arkansas Travelers take on the Springfield Cardinals and he wanted to know if Benjamin and I wanted to go. I've been wanting to take him to a game down there, plus I hadn't seen the new ballpark, so I checked with the boy and he was all good for it.

So the last Saturday in August had us heading down to Little Rock for the ballgame. The new stadium is really very nice, similar in feel to Baum Stadium up on the University of Arkansas campus. Both of them, plus other major league stadiums such as Rangers Stadium in Arlington, were designed by the HOK firm, so that's probably the cause of the similarities.

Outside the ballpark were statues of a hitter, a pitcher and a fielder. I saw something similar to this outside of Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati when I went a few years ago. Seemed a good place to get a picture.

We then headed for the will call window to pick up our tickets and walked around to go inside. My mom snapped this picture (well, she took all the ones on this entry) as we were walking up, getting three generations of Shoptaw men.

We walked into the gate (they are fancy now, just running a barcode scanner over your tickets instead of tearing them) and around to our seats. They were very nice and close to the action.

Now, in the leadup discussion to us going, I mentioned things to Benjamin, such as the players we'd be seeing, that some of them would be Cardinals someday, the food at the ballpark, stuff like that. As soon as we get to our seats, he's immediately ready for a hot dog. The concession stand wasn't too far behind us so we went and got our food.

This dog was with mustard and ketchup. The nasty ketchup habit he picked up from his mother. I keep trying to tell him that the only way to eat it is plain mustard, but he won' t listen to me.

The hot dog was quickly consumed. Before the first pitch, he starts asking for popcorn. I finally had to tell him to wait until the end of the third inning. A little before that, though, the vendor comes around with some and so we get a box of popcorn to eat.


After he eats some of that, he starts wanting to go home. I had told him we'd have to stay to the end and I reminded him of the fact. He'd watch some of the game, then say something about going home. Finally, my mom and the two of us went to the souvenir stand, looking for things to buy. She got him a stuffed animal that looked like the Traveler mascot and Sarah got a stuffed bear with a Travelers shirt. (I picked up a nice cap for me.)

We returned to our seats, where he again talked about going home. We were able to stall him until the end of the game, thankfully. He did watch a lot of it and had a good time for the most part.

However, the highlight of the evening, for him, came at the end. After that game, they were having a fireworks display. Knowing that he wasn't a big fan of the loud noises, we tried to hurry out of the park, but between bathroom stops and everything else, the display got started while we were still in the place. It turned out great for him, though, because during part of the display, they played the theme from Star Wars along with the fireworks. Hearing the music was just great for him and he had to stop and listen until it was done. That, not anything else, was the first thing he had to tell his mom about when we got home.

All in all, it was a fun night out with him. I think he had a great time as well.