On Sunday afternoon, we again headed downtown, this time to catch an old-time baseball game between Forest City and the Cleveland Blues. Forest City is based out of Chagrin Falls and were established in 1996, after the original Forest City’s, one of Ohio’s oldest clubs dating to 1865. The Blues were formed in 2008 (again modeled after the old Blues, originally established in 1878) and are based out of old League Park.
The games are played using the same rules that were around 150 years ago (no gloves, underhand pitching!), the teams don replica uniforms, and the terminology is also period-appropriate. Just ask us cranks. I was not aware that we had such a vibrant vintage baseball scene around here, but apparently we do, with multiple teams playing a number of games every week or two throughout the summer.
We hung around for several innings before grabbing some dinner, and it was a pretty neat experience. Definitely a bit different for someone that’s used to modern baseball, but quite fun to watch and listen to.
Adding to the list of How it’s Starting to Feel More Like Fall is football. Also making the list is, “it was still so dark this morning when I got up for work that I had to turn a light on,” but that’s not today’s topic. Football’s probably not my favorite sport, but it’s up there, and there are certain aspects of the different levels that I enjoy.
I like high school, and the feel of walking through the parking lot on a crisp September Friday night, heading toward the lights and the marching bands. There’s just something fun about watching a bunch of kids playing hard and having fun, even knowing the majority of them will never play again once they graduate, and there’s nothing quite like a high school halftime show.
Or college, and taking a break from raking leaves (bad thought, get it out!) on Saturday mornings to come in for the noon kickoff (the hypocrisy of the NCAA is starting to rub me a little, but I’ll still watch – college is, in some cases, better than the pros). If you’re on a smaller campus, grabbing a quick lunch before heading over to the game (though we usually only stayed for the first half – at Mount Union, the game was pretty much over by halftime).
I like the NFL too – lazing through a Sunday morning, then making a pot of chili and sitting to watch the game with the family (C needs to get a little older so I have a football-watching partner; S isn’t really into it). Of course, this is Cleveland, so there’s not really that much to get excited about with the Browns, even though they’ve looked halfway decent in the preseason (they do that every year, and get everyone’s hopes up, then disappoint – or really, just perform the way we should have expected. We’re kind of always in the “wait ’til next year” mode [with all our teams], but with some people, I think it’s gotten to the “wait ’til… oh, forget it, it’s never going to happen in my lifetime” point). Back when I was a kid and the Browns were good (the 80s was the last time that happened), we’d have dog bone cookies on game day. I hope I can bring that back for our kids someday, but I’m waiting until there’s a reasonably good chance that we’ll still want to watch the game after the first quarter. No sense in making dog bone cookies if the game’s over after 15 minutes. Still, I doubt we’d have any problems finishing them…
We took C to his first Indians’ game on Wednesday. It was a noon game, but I had tickets from work and permission to go, so go we did. It was about 95 degrees and muggy, so not optimal conditions for a nine month-old, but we lathered him (and ourselves) up and got out his beach hat. And brought plenty of water. And Cheerios.
It was as hot and sticky as advertised, but he was a good trooper. As soon as we got there, he started with his usual squirming and I thought we were in for a long afternoon, but he settled down enough to give us a fighting chance. My parents came with us, so with a 4:1 ratio, we should have been able to maintain some semblance of control, right?
We were all hot and dripping sweat, but it was a fun afternoon. The game ended up going into extra innings, and they lost in 10. I guess he hasn’t developed the winning touch yet.
Really, he was happy to be there.
"No more autographs, and get that camera out of my face.""It's rally time!"It was rally time, until he found the string.Too much excitement for one day.
