I might have written a similar version of this post before, but there are some twists on it now, so bear with me. I think it will be worth your time. After a bit of digging, I'm pretty confident Andrew and I's first big league game was on July 26, 1995. It was in St. Louis, at the Middle Busch Stadium. I would have just turned nine the previous month, which would make Andrew seven. I don't remember a ton about the game itself, but I do remember Ozzie Smith was hurt (which was a huge bummer), Bernard Gilkey hit a home run,* and there was an argument about the ground rules and that yellow line in center field. I feel like our seats were about like the picture I found on the internet over there, but a bit lower. I'm also pretty sure the field was astroturf at the time. *That home run is how I was able to track down what game we were at. It turns out, as a Cardinal, Gilkey hit two home runs against the Mets. One game in 1993 had Ozzie in the line up. The one in 1995 doesn't, so that sealed that. Also, Andrew got so excited for the homer that he kinda jumped out of his seat. The seat flipped up out from under him, so he fell butt-first on the concrete floor and hit his elbow on the armrest on the way down. He cried for a bit about it, but he got over it pretty quick. What I actually remember more about the game was the pure excitement around it. I was definitely old enough to have already become a huge baseball fan and latched onto the Cubs. Growing up in a predominantly Cardinals family, though, I was fine with the Cardinals. It felt like a big enough wonder to me that I would actually be going to a major league park, I was wired through with excitement no matter who we might have gone to see. I remember walking around the stadium early and taking in all the sights and going through some souvenir stands. In one of those weird memories that sticks out, I do remember we got walk-up tickets that day, and we got nice seats. My memory tells me they were $12 each, though I couldn't swear that to you. If that's right, though, that comes out to about $20 in 2018 (last year available on the calculator). I was in awe of the building and the experience. It wasn't enough to turn me into a Cardinal fan, but I was definitely hooked on going to the stadium. Last summer, Beth also got to go to her first big league game. It was also in St. Louis, as fate would have it. It was a bit of a fluke. We have a family reunion in Dexter, Missouri, at the end of every July. Unfortunately, that many times conflicts with Kristine's family vacation, so we have to decide which one we will do. That year, we had originally planned to make the trip to Wisconsin with Kristine's family, as we feared it would be the last one. It turned out not to happen. That part was not particularly happy, and the other circumstances around it were very sad, but it did mean we could make it to the reunion on short notice. And, as it happened, the Cubs were going to be in St. Louis that Friday. I did wonder for a bit if we should go. Beth probably won't remember much of it, we had no idea if we would get nine innings out of her, let alone the fireworks afterwards. There was also the question if there would even be tickets on that short notice. Luckily, there were. The only available seats were pretty high up, but that just meant they weren't terribly expensive. I want to say we spent around $80 total for the three of us, after taxes and fees and everything. A bit higher than 1995, but there's not much to be done about about. We decided we would give it a try, and if Beth got too fussy or whatnot, we would leave early. I typically hate doing that, but I've learned from a few basketball outings that sometimes you just have to play by toddler rules. Beth was excited, but I don't know that she was quite as excited as I was at my first game. Then again, she was just a few weeks short of three. She didn't have any idea why this would be quite as big a deal as I did at nine, and she never had the chance to watch or play as much baseball as I did before my first game. We went to get her reactions and all, but let's be honest here. We still did this for us. And that was perfectly okay. She had a very good time. And the seating actually worked out perfectly. Our seats had nobody in front of us. It was just the stairwell to go out into the upper concourse, which meant unobstructed views and really easy to get to the concessions or restrooms and back. The stairs up to the other rows passed around us and came together right behind us. That meant Kristine and I both had plenty of elbow room, and Beth was free to climb and stand more or less as she pleased without bothering anybody around us. It was a warm day, but the temperature was very nice as the sun went down. Beth had a great time drinking fruit punch and eating on a bag of popcorn that was just about as big as she was.* I don't know how much of the game she really took in, between all the concessions and looking around the stadium and babbling on, but it was so heartwarming all the same. When she gets asked about her first big league game, I don't know how much if any she'll remember of it, but I know I'll remember it forever. *I know (now) it's not really recommended to give young kids popcorn. I honestly didn't know that at the time, and now she absolutely loves popcorn. Sometimes you just got to let the kids live, you know? As far as the game itself was concerned, the Cubs actually jumped out on top on a Rizzo homer. We had a lot of Cubs fans around us, so much of our section exploded. Beth exploded, too, and we yelled and cheered as I held her up and bounced her around. We high-fived and loved it. The rest of the game was not so great for the Cubs, though. The immediately gave the lead back in the bottom of that inning and the Cards never looked back on the way to a 5-2 win. That part didn't matter, though. Beth did great for nine innings, we had a blast in the perfect seats for us, and at least Kristine and I made some memories. During the time between the end of the game and the crew getting the firework show set up, Beth managed to fall asleep in my arms. No matter, I thought. The fireworks will wake her up. That was a great big "NO." She managed to sleep through the entire firework show, the entire walk back down to the ground level and all the way through finding a cab to take us back to our hotel clear out by the airport. She woke up on the cab ride home, which she also thought was exciting that somebody else was driving us around. I was less excited about the $50 fare, but all things considered, that was probably a better bet than trying to take the Metra that late at night with a toddler. Later this summer, we've talked about going to Milwaukee for a game with my brother and his wife, similar to what we did to this last hockey game, but I think I might try to talk them into making this one a family trip. It would be totally for us again, I'm sure, but I think I'd really like to see the little girls making some memories for us together this summer.
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