Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I just got back from taking Miguel to the airport, and I have an hour to kill before my next class. I could be reading in preparation for class, but instead I'm going to share a couple of yesterday's moments with you all.

We had a great last day together here in Tucson... I had a morning class, during which Miguel wandered around campus and went to a photography exhibit, and then we shared some pizza at our favorite place here in town, Magpie's Pizza. Afterwards, we completely scoured my filthy car (Miguel is definitely Felix Unger, while I star in the role of Walter Matthau's character, Oscar) and then took a drive to check out the east side of Tucson (not much there but brown cactus).


Then, we took a walk in Reid Park and stumbled upon the Colorado Rockies in the midst of spring training. I thought it was some beer belly softball league until I got closer and realized we were looking at actual athletes. Of course, I don't have a clue who any baseball players are, and here we were standing right next to the Major League's 2002 Rookie of the Year (Jason Jennings, for any of you who do know baseball)... I actually had to ask a guy collecting autographs, "so, who is the most famous player that we can see here?" And I had never heard of him even after he told me... c'est la vie!

We found out there was a game that evening against the San Diego Padres so we bought tickets. Miguel is more of a soccer, football, and basketball guy so he didn't know many players either, but we thought it would make a fun last night to our vacation. We got seats right behind home plate, only five rows back. The only player whose name I recognized was Mike Piazza, who used to play for the Mets apparently, and Miguel reminded me that he had been in a "Pert Plus" commercial, which helped me place who he was...

Anyone remember this? ---

Now that's a fine lookin' mullet.

Here is a photo we took of how he's looking now... BTW, he's
lost the porn mustache for the 21st century (he's the catcher):

OK, so it's a little blurry, but you get an idea of how close
we were to players we didn't even know to get excited about.

Personally, I could have cared less about who was winning or losing. I found myself enraptured with "the program" that I purchased for $2.00. It had the players' weights, heights, birthplaces, and ages. I amused myself by making Miguel guess each player's vital statistics. He was not as amused as me, finally telling me to quit it so he could just enjoy the game.

So then I diverted my attention to people watching. Sitting two rows in front of us was the manager of the "Desert Diamond" casino, who threw out the opening pitch. He had this super high maintenance blonde wife, who Miguel and I suspected that he met when she was working as a "cocktail server."


Here they are:

He was like a bride at a wedding in his starring role...
and she was wearing fur, although you can't see it here.


And what do you think the love child of Carrot Top and Frankie Muniz might look like?


Carrot Top + Malcolm in the Middle =

It really was uncanny.

We left in the 8th inning when it was clear that the Rockies were going to win the game, plus our legs had become so cold in the freezing night temperature that we had to dethaw the icicles that had formed in order to stand up.

What better way to get warm? Duhh... outdoor dining at
a local Mexican food stand without heat lamps!

However, I strongly recommend against eating Mexican
hot dogs smothered in beans for a farewell romantic evening...
for a number of rather obvious reasons.

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