Take Me Out to the Ball Field

It is 08:20 on Friday and I am going to write a bit though I will have to continue/finish this blog when I return from Rockford. My dad wants to go up and settle with everyone (funeral home, cemetery...) that he owes from my mom's funeral. I guess we are also going to go to Beyer Stadium where the Rockford Peaches played baseball tool. I am not really sure why he wants to go there but I am excited to see the place. I know we are going to a game and such at the end of May and the beginning of June but I will go along for the ride today. I say "going along for the ride" but I predict dad will have me drive. I hope they have a souvenir shop open because I would not mind having a Peaches' cap. I have caps of all the MLB teams as well as some former teams, like The Montreal Expos and The Brooklyn Dodgers, but it would be cool to have a cap from the team where my mom was bat girl for. Sorry I ended that last sentence in a preposition but I can break all or any of the rules proper grammar. I think, if we ever go to another Halloween party, I will cross-dress as a Rockford Peach. Please do not invite me to a costume party just to stare at my legs beneath my skirt. A lot of coincidental foreshadowing in this paragraph I know now at 19:12 (the future from now)! 

So, it is now 16:42 and I am back home. It was a really fun trip and I did not even have to drive - BONUS! So we went to Beyer Stadium and started walking around the field. I took lots of photos of the field and the dugouts...with my phone. I walked by several areas that had photos hanging on several stations that were protected from the elements by hard plastic covers. I came to one on the third base side that had three young, smiling girls sitting on the bench. The girl on the left looked somewhat similar to my daughter. There was a caption with the players' names and the one on the left was listed as Fay McGuire. Hey, my mom's maiden name was McGuire and her first name was Faye. Holy crap! It was my mom with two other bat girls.

While circling around another ball field, Marinelli Field, I saw an equipment trailer of the Rockford Expos. I had never heard of them though, of course, I do have a Montreal Expos' cap from before they became the Washington Nationals.  I looked it up and the Rockford Expos were, indeed, a Midwest League minor league team for Montreal in 1988. They finished in first place in the Midwest Northern League in their one and only season. I wonder if they ever met Crash Davis? Did you know that there really was a Lawrence Columbus "Crash" Davis who inspired Kevin Costner's character in the film Bull Durham? I love that movie. That Expos' reference from the first paragraph there and the one from this paragraph are both true and I wrote that first paragraph way before we went to Rockford and I am writing this one way after we got home.

Another oddity about the trip today was that I found a sports paper that had a story about my grandmother, my mom's mother - Virginia (Betty) McGuire at the time. The Rockford Sporting News And Entertainment Guide, talked about what a beast she was being in a golf tournament. She was always a good golfer but I did not know that she was the shiznit. She was a good grandmother and always fun. I may have gotten some of my athletic prowess from her? Not her golf skills though, sadly.

I almost got e coli today but I was saved by Splenda (my daughter, not the sweetener) and Chipotle' (the restaurant, not the pepper). We (Fabio, Cha Cha and I) ordered dinner from the restaurant on the phone and I was going to go pick-up the food at the restaurant. While I was waiting for the time for the order to be ready I continued typing and talking to Fabio. Splenda, knowing I am eating mostly salads right now (I had a salad last night when we had dinner together), sent me a message. I opened the link she had sent that talked about how romaine lettuce is carrying e coli. At that same time, I got a phone call and I did not recognize the number so I kept writing. The same number came up again a few minutes later and I answered. It was Chipotle' telling me what I had just learned. I told them to remove the lettuce on our dishes ordered and I went and got the food. A salad is not a salad without lettuce. It was good but it was just chicken and veggies. Since I had a grilled chicken breast and steamed broccoli for lunch when dad and I stopped for lunch I just kept the veggie day going.

So, seeing how lucky I was today with my Rockford Peaches' quest  and not dying from e coli I thought about buying some lottery tickets. My lucky number has always been 13 and, when I reached into my pocket, I pulled out all of my cash and I had thirteen bucks. I went into the Road Ranger gas station across from Chipotle' and put the money on the barrel-head. The lady told me that they were $2.00 each but, I had an odd number of dollars. I reached into my pocket, expecting to pull out pocket lint, and there was one single dollar in my pocket. I guess 13 was not all the cash I had afterall. So, I got fourteen dollars worth of tickets. If I win does that mean that my new favorite number is 14 or is 13 the reason I found 14 in my pocket?

e coli does not look delicious

Oh my, it is 19:43 now. I should probably wrap this up. It was a very adventurous, successful, fun, interesting day. It would be great if the greatness carried over into tomorrow night's lottery drawing and I could make our upcoming trip to Hot Spring, Arkansas for our 30th wedding anniversary trip even more awesome than it is already going to be.

I am now ending and, since it is almost tomorrow (LOL) I may not write again tomorrow. I would bet all of my future lottery winnings that I will write again tomorrow. I will be signing free autographs at Fatty's tomorrow afternoon. I am not sure what I will eat there with the ecoli deal going on. I;m a salad guy. Their Corncob Salad is amazing. I will do my menu homework on-line before we go to look for alternatives. Why is everything trying to kill us all the time? TTTT (almost certainly)...MITM (out) BYE!