First Baseball Game!

I have to admit, there have been a few times since we scheduled the babies' first game for today that I've thought to myself, "Why, exactly, are you taking THREE seven month olds to a BASEBALL GAME?"  And not only that, to a RED SOX game (my apologies if you are a Red Sox fan...but if you are, you know it's not necessarily the crowd you want to have your infants around).  But, we had amazing tickets (thank you, Debbie) and lots of people asking to see them, so we went through with it.

And it was great!

We started with about an hour and a half of hanging out in the press box.  We were in sort of a receiving line - folks would pass by to meet/see the babies and congratulate us and stay and chat.

Each baby had a pass allowing them access to the Press Box:

Max

Daniel

Caroline

(who decided she needed to read the fine print)

 Caroline was not in the smiliest of moods.  Normally, she really digs all the attention, but today she was pretty blase about it all.  Only A's announcer Vince Cotroneo got her to smile.  Here he is posing with all the Salvateenies, and former big league umpire Ed Montague:

And here's Sam Goldman with the triplets:

They also met a bunch of other folks who were in a rush to do their jobs and couldn't stay for pictures (like Dick Callahan, Ken Korach, Chris Townshend, and Jim Fregosi).

Daniel got a little fussy, so he got to go on a tour of Daddy's seat in the Press Box:

And then it was time to venture out to our seats:

Daniel did not seem impressed:

And Max was a tad confused:

Caroline rode in the Bjorn, so it was tough to snap a picture:

Almost immediately, it started raining, and our amazing seats were ONE ROW in front of the overhang. It was getting close to feeding time anyway, so we retired to the press dining room (which becomes an employee break room once the game has begun) and set about the science experiment known as mixing formula.  As each child finished eating, I trudged down the hall to the fancy suites bathrooms.  Sadly, no changing tables, but there was a wide enough spot on the vanity that I could fit a baby and quickly do the diaper change while praying that there wouldn't be a rolling incident.

In the middle of the fifth inning, we returned to our seats.  We were in prime foul ball territory, so we turned the boys' car seats backwards.  We enjoyed about an inning of the game before it started to rain again.  And this time it was REALLY coming down.  So we bailed out again.  The usher at the top of the aisle encouraged us to take seats in the protected rows under the overhang, so we slid in (along with Joe Rogers and Ted Goldberg, who had stopped by JUST before it started to rain).

These are the pictures Joe took before it started to rain:

As you can see, Daniel was still zonked out

This is the version Mr. Rogers entitled "The Joy of Motherhood", and which I maintain really needn't have been shared.  But here I am, sharing it.

Once we'd moved to higher ground, Max promptly fell asleep:

Caroline slept for a long time, but awoke when the A's rallied in the 8th:

The cheering woke Max up too:

Daniel was the only one who was really upset by the crowd noise:

During the 8th, a cameraman came by and put the babies on the big screen.  We would've had to take his word for it, since we couldn't see the screen from where we were, but it  turns out some friends of ours (the Purtells) saw Caroline in her A's outfit, jumped on Facebook to see if we'd posted where we were sitting (we had) and came by to hang out with us.

The A's lost, 5-3, but the day was still a success.  The babies have been to a major league ballgame and made it through a full 9 innings without a major meltdown.  Joe's first game was an A's/Twins affair (in Minneapolis - against the Kansas City A's) and the 'teenies' first game was A's/RedSox.  In Joe's first game, Harmon Killebrew hit a home run for the 15th inning win.  Today, the A's left something like 15 runners on base, and there were home runs by Coco Crisp, Kevin Youkalis (Jew in baseball), JD Drew, and Jed Lowrie.

AND, we all even shared a malt! (OK, I ate most of it, I admit.  But the babies all got to try a little taste!)

We get to do it all over again on Saturday at the Giants, only next time Daddy will be working in the Press Box, so we'll have Grandma, Aunt Lee Ann, and Sabrina with us.  And we'll be sitting in the middle of the row - think kind thoughts for the folks next to us!