Getting to First Base

Wooooooo! (Royals win!)

Those little blurry things in jerseys and caps there on the field are the Kansas City Royals celebrating a dramatic, stunning, unexpected and wholly high-inducing comeback victory over the Cleveland Indians. The players are blurry because I couldn’t hold my hand still. I couldn’t hold my hand still because it is attached to my arm, which is attached to the rest of me, which was jumping all over in a fit of uncontrollable joy/disbelief/more joy.

I went to the game by myself on an absurd little whim, which is unusual for me because I am normally calculated and boring, and don’t give in to fits of whimsy. But, today, I was bored and wanted to see Kauffman Stadium, which underwent $250 million worth of renovations over the winter that I hadn’t had the chance to see.

For a while, I was a little worried. The Royals’ starter, Brian Bannister, gave up a couple of deeeeeep fly balls to center field to start the game. I was afraid that Cleveland players would keep hitting those, and some of them would leave the yard. Bannister’s success so far this season has come, in large part, from his ability to induce grounders and therefore avoid giving up homers. But those flyouts made me think we were in store for a home run fest.

Thankfully, it was the Royals who put on a homerfest, when Mike Jacobs and Mark Teahen each homered on back-to-back pitches from Kerry Wood. Then catcher Miguel Olivo walked, which is just as unlikely as back-to-back home runs, and David DeJesus tripled him in. I looooove triples and I looooooove DeJesus, so that was awesome. Then Willie Bloomquist hit a sacrifice fly to right field that drove DeJesus in. My scorecard from that inning is a total mess, because I was too jubilant to fill it out neatly.

So, my team won, the weather was great, I got to meet one of my favorite radio hosts, got to see my aunt, unlce and cousin, and it was free t-shirt day. AND, I didn’t fall asleep on the drive home. VICTORY!!