jennings rampage

At least we were up 5-0.

This has been a problem of mine my entire life: I’m quick to opt for the option I’d consider whimsical or romantic, without fully considering it from soup to nuts. And once the going gets just a little hairy, I pull the cord. I guess you could say I have a romantic spirit, but not romantic balls.

We’d been planning to go to a Durham Bulls game all summer, it’s just happened that the weekends I’ve been down here have been the weekends the team’s on the road. (Which reminds me, I’ve always wanted to go to a Bulls game on the road, maybe in Scranton or something, but that’s a terrible idea for another day.) But tonight was the night, I planned to be here this weekend just because the hated Norfolk Tides were in town, and my betrothed and I would take in a ball game together for the first time.

Then I got it in my head that eschewing reserved seats and sitting on the lawn in center field would give this occasion the whimsy it wanted. Just me and the love of my life, her bright blue eyes set against the green grass, sitting close as lovers do, watching the physical poetry of our national pastime play out on the night of the summer solstice.

As it turns out, not so much. Lawn seating at the DBAP sucks. The hill is ridiculously steep, so there’s no place to sit comfortably or set a drink down. It’s so teeming with insect life that people walking through kicked up a dense cloud of bugs. No one was paying any attention to the game, it felt like trying to appreciate the opening act at an Allman Brothers concert. And the redneck kids. Oh sweet heavens, the redneck kids.

In the second inning, I suggested to Meaghan that whenever she was ready, we could get up off the lawn and wander around and watch the game standing room style. She indicated that she was ready at that precise moment. Romance fail. We’re both itchy.

The park was pretty full, so I didn’t think we could slip into someone else’s seat. We watched from the outfield patio for an inning or so, got some nachos and sat in chairs on the concourse, and then left in the fifth inning — the earliest I’ve left a game since the time I nearly got sun poisoning at the old Comiskey Park.

I will have to do better next time.