NIagara Falls-Day4: Cleveland Indians v. MN Twins Game

To cap off our Niagara Falls family adventure, we stayed the night in Cleveland on the way home and went to a Twins game. Jacobs Field is wonderfully family friendly; we had gone to a game last year. I would normally not look forward to spending a hot afternoon at a ballpark with three young children, but at Jacobs Field, I do.

We prepared for this trip by making sure we were all dressed appropriately. Thank you, Grandma Connie, for the shirts!
Parking at the Field is great. Parking is available, covered or uncovered, within three blocks of the field for ten dollars or less. We parked in the same place as last year. It was only one block down from the field, which makes for an easy walk. I love that Eric is so willing to be the one carrying Sophia. He says it's so easy with the carrier he barely notices her. And I love the double take people do when they realize he has a baby on his back.
We didn't make any big effort to get there early for batting practice or anything. As much as the boys would love it, with the rest of the family, it's just not practical for us. We strive just to get there on time. But this morning we were just a bit early, so we headed down to the lower level right by the field. The Twins were still warming up. Another thing I like about Jacobs Field is that it's very open. Once we're in, no one is harassing us about which section our tickets say we are supposed to be in, so we could just walk down to the field level area. Ticket workers just smiled and waved at us (and a few, in jest, commented that we were wearing the wrong shirts and would direct us to the Indians gift shops). On the way down, we stopped at the Twins bull pen to see Francisco Liriano warming up. Eric held up Joshy and yelled down, and so Francisco pitched him up a ball. There were others yelling, but it helps to be the only fans of the away team in sight.

Then we headed to the field level. Mari, of course, brought along her baby dolly.
We noticed that Orlando Hudson and Denard Span were chatting with people along the fence.
At first, we hung in the back of the group, trying to get their attention (as were many others, but they were all Indians fans). Then I noticed an opening right at the fence. I grabbed Mari and we slipped down there. Denard was now jogging back and forth, warming up, so I told Mari to yell, "Go Twins!", which she did in her cute little girl voice. Denard looked at her and gave her a little wave. In a few moments, Eric, Joshy, and Sophia joined us. Then we noticed that Denard had come closer to talk to the people again (I think they must have been family as they were making plans to meet after the game). We got his attention again, and he came over to say hi!!!! We were all so excited, but I think Eric was the most excited. Anyway, we asked Denard to sign the ball we got from Liriano. He did! Then we asked if we could get a picture with him and the kids.
The kids were more excited than they appear, but I didn't want to make Denard wait for them to both smile nicely. He was minutes away from playing professional baseball, after all.

But this was the true highlight:
After I snapped the photo, Mari turned to major league baseball player Denard Span, and said,
"Here. I'll let you hold my dolly baby. Do you want to?"
And he did!
He took the dolly from Mari's hands, danced it around for a minute, and said hi to the dolly! Can you believe it? As much as I wanted to get THAT on camera, all I could do was stand there open-mouthed. Then he handed the dolly back to Mari, and with one more "Go Twins!" from us, he trotted off to start the game.

Now THAT was awesome.

We talked about it the rest of the game, but nothing else was nearly as thrilling as that, not even me helping out another fan on those games they play on the big screen (they gave me a coupon for a free Panera Bread meal, which we picked up on the way home). Nevertheless, here's some more photos.

Joshy showing off the Liriano/Span ball.
Sophia did wonderful. I think she really did have a great time!
Our view of the field.
It was expected to rain, so the crowd was rather thin. But there was not a single drop in the sky until about two minutes after we got into our car to leave. The weather was quite nice, cloudy and cool.

Afterward they let the kids run the bases. We had to walk through a long tunnel under the seats to get there. I love that Joshy and Mari still hold hands.
I don't have any photos of them running the bases, as Joshy took off like a rocket and I had to stay with Mari. In fact, I completely lost Joshy. When we got to the end, I panicked because he wasn't there. And of course, there was such a crowd. He surfaced within a few minutes, but not until after Eric showed up and I was ready to cry (Eric was walking the bases with Sophia). Joshy was at the end, just more off to the side.

I was so happy to have us all together again.
Oh yeah...and the Twins won!