Spring Training

The Atlanta Braves hold their annual spring training at Disney's Wide World of Sports. This gives us the occasional opportunity to attend a Major League Baseball game in a world class facility at a fraction of the cost. For his 10th birthday, Lance wanted to attend a game, just as we did for his 8th birthday.  Jared and Lance's best friend Matthew came along and Titus made his Major League début.  He was so excited! This may have accounted for the number of times he had to visit the men's room. Although, he does have a tendency to want to "sample" the bathrooms where ever we go. :-)

As you can see from the picture below, the weather was questionable and the forecast called for heavy rain to hit right at game time. Spring Training games are rarely rescheduled, so we decided to head out and hope for the best. We are glad we did.

Because of the impending rain, the field was covered with the tarp. We arrived at the ballpark and found our seats, which were wet. We came prepared, with not only rain jackets, but I stashed a small towel in my pocket as well. Disney was prepared as well, with plenty of attendants on hand with towels galore to dry off seats for people before they sat down. The rain did come, but thankfully it was short down pours and not very heavy. We stayed very dry and with some time on our hands, we explored the ballpark. We went up as high as we could to look around. I noticed people were on the field and looking up at the sky and talking on hand held radios. Tina was at home checking radar, as was I on my iPhone. It looked like the clouds were breaking up and lo and behold, the game was on!!! Activity on the field was picking up and preparations were being made for the tarp to be rolled up.

From our crow's nest view, we all witnessed how the tarp is rolled up and watched the field being prepared for play. It was really neat to watch. Those guys really hussled. We are very thankful the game was only delayed 30 minutes and the rain held off for the entirety of the game. It turned out to be a great day for a ballgame!

We were all really excited to watch a game between two strong ball clubs - the Atlanta Braves and the Washington Nationals. The most exciting part was seeing the previous year's phenom in person - Bryce Harper. He did not disappoint. This seemingly benign chopper (a ground ball that first hits close to the plate) was hit so hard the 1st and 2nd baseman had no chance to catch it. And he really hustles! With my boys and Matthew wanting to play baseball and hoping to be in the Major's someday, it's important to watch the professionals play the game at 100% and also see how they do the same things I'm teaching them when warming up - fundamentals.

The weather turned out to be so nice, everyone shed the rain gear. The cloud cover kept the temperature quite nice.

We had some really great seats - just to the right of home plate and about 12 rows back.  Some foul balls came close and I know the boys had their hearts set on catching a ball. But alas no foul ball came quite close enough, but.....

Towards the end of the game, many people had left and we moved behind the Braves dugout. When the pitcher made the final out, the Braves congratulated each other on the field then made their way into the dugout. The ball used to make the final out was flipped on top of it right towards Matthew, whose quick reflexes caused him to snap it up.

Score!! A first for everyone! Gameball! And it made the final out too!

All-in-all, it was great day. Even the rain had a purpose, it allowed us to witness the set-up of a MLB quality field and watch warm-ups. The game was very exciting, with lots of hits, nice fielding, and scoring. And best of all, was sharing the excitment of the home team Braves winning with four enthusiastic boys!