Is it Half time yet?

*I may need an editor for this blog: It's July 4th, and I TiVo'd the game and just started watching it. Wakefield is pitching today, not Julian, and as you all know by now, it's a day game, not a night game. Any volunteer's for the job?*

I actually heard my wife, who is married to a man who watches a minimum of 162 baseball
games a year, ask me that question tonight. Can you tell she's not exactly a sports fan?

Took the family to the local minor league game, featuring the home team Burlington Royals vs. the Princeton Devil Rays. Thought it was a weird coincidence that the Sox started a 3 game set vs. the Tampa Bay Devil Rays tonight.

Anyway, it was quite the experience, and reminded me why I haven't taken the family to a Red Sox game yet. We get there, get our hot dogs and drinks, grab a seat and 2 minutes later a guy walks by and gives Rakes a ball hit out during batting practice. A very nice gesture by a total stranger and Rakes gives him a "nank nu" for his trouble.

Not long after, the Royals mascot, some undetermined animal named Bingo comes by and pretends to try and steal Rakes's hot dog: for the next 2 hours, every 3.7 seconds or so, Rakes would ask "Bere is Wally?" Try as I might, I could not get the boy to understand that Wally was in Boston and Bingo was who he saw. By the end of the night we had finally gotten to this point: "Bere is Bingo Wally?". I guess it's progress.

In the top of the 4th, I took Rakes to the restroom and saw the picture that accompanies tonight's post: above the urinal's are paintings of the jersey's of the player's who have come through the Burlington organization over the years. Prior to this year, they were the Rookie team of the Cleveland Indians before being bought by the Kansas City Royals.

As I showed Rakes Manny's jersey I tried to get him to go to the bathroom: he kept shouting "No Daddy: Dat Maaaanny's pottie", like only Manny could use it. We finally settled on Jim Thome's urinal as an acceptable alternative.

The next 30 minutes were spent looking for "Bingo Wally" to take a picture with him, Ciera, and Rakes: it ended with Bingo never found. Closest thing we got to an explanation was that Bingo took several breaks and it was his return was doubtful. Rakes sadly followed us to the car, only to forget his misfortune the minute I turned on "The Princess Bride" for the ride home.

Reaching home, I was pumped to see the Sox with a 4-0 lead, and it ended in a 4-1 win, with a meaningless Carlos Pena HR off the Papelbot in the 9th: it's all good, since Haverhill played for a bit in Boston last year, and had a memorable walk off home run in September '06 that I still smile about.

Daisuke is 10-5, the Sox are 51-31, and Julian takes the hill tomorrow night, the 4th of July.

It doesn't get much better than that.