So rarely in life does everything work out exactly the way you want it to.
Yesterday, though, on the boys' trip to Dodger Stadium - and my first trip since I was a toddler - it all came together and we enjoyed a perfect day in, for us, a perfect place. Dodger Stadium.
Above all else, I am a baseball fan. The game means everything to me. I love, really love, other sports but for reasons I don't quite understand, baseball is my thing. It always has been and it always will be the first and most important love of my sporting life.
The way the New Yorker's Roger Angell wrote about baseball is the way I feel about baseball. His love of the game and mine were perfect matches, I think. What I would have given to watch a baseball game with him before he died last year at age 101.
My love for the Los Angeles Dodgers run deep and is 50 years old and counting. I am Dodger blue through and through. Like Tommy Lasorda, I bleed Dodger blue. The teams I coached in baseball for so many years were the Dodgers (JP) and the Junior Dodgers (Joe). JP's 11U team that I coached to a Cal Ripken State Championship were the WNSL Dodgers. We proudly wore Dodgers blue.
And my boys, thankfully, inherited my love of the Dodgers and, conversely, my hatred for the San Francisco Giants. We've celebrated Dodgers' wins together - especially the 2020 World Series - and commiserated over Dodgers' losses together. The boys have a ton of Dodgers' gear - hoodies, t-shirts, hats, etc. We have framed photos, upstairs, of Dodgers' players that I bootlegged off the internet and Instagram - Mookie Betts, Justin Turner, and Cody Bellinger.
For our summer vacation trip, Jude and I decided to take the boys to California. I planned the trip around a pair of Dodgers' games - vs. the Pirates, then the Angels. The idea was that the boys would have a chance to see Brian Reynolds play one night and Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout the next night. In Dodgers Stadium.
I purchased the tickets for both nights a few months ago. I purchased four extra tickets for the Godfather of Foodbrothers, Jeff "El Jefe" Williams and his family, for the Pirates' game. Jeff, one of Jude's closest friends from Tulane, is a diehard Dodgers' fan. I also purchased parking passes for Jeff and me, and four pregame stadium tour passes for Jude, the boys, and me.
A couple of months ago, I reached out to a friend of mine, Andy, who is the hitting coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Long story. I let him know we would be in Los Angeles at the Dodgers-Pirates game and I would love to see him. He instantly texted back and told me he could get us field passes for batting practice. He suggested I text him again closer to the game and remind him that we would be there.
Field passes for batting practice!?!
Too good to be true, I thought at the time, but possible. I told Jude but didn't mention it to the boys because I didn't want to disappoint them if the field passes for batting practice didn't work out.
As you can see, there were a lot of moving parts. Traffic. Would Andy be able to come through with the field passes for batting practice? Parking. Could we get to Dodgers Stadium on time for the tour? Could I transfer Jeff's tickets to him? I was fairly stressed about the entire deal, to be honest.
And miracle of miracles, it all worked out. Perfectly.
We left our rental house in Santa Monica a little later than we planned, fought a bit of traffic, but arrived at Dodger Stadium about 3:15 p.m. We took a couple of wrong turns trying to find our parking lot but, finally, ended up in Parking Lot B courtesy of the parking pass I purchased a few months ago. We stumbled upon the starting point for the Dodgers Stadium tour 15 minutes or so before it started at 3:40 p.m., queued up, and in we went.
Although the Stadium tour was fascinating, much to the chagrin of one of the tour guides I sneaked away at 4:15 p.m. to try to find the field passes my friend, Andy, had left for me. First, I tried the left field pro shop to no avail, then a kindly security guard suggested I try the left field ticket booth outside the Stadium. I say kindly because he agreed to wait at the gate and let me back inside. Initially, the lady in the ticket booth told me she needed identification for all four of us, unless they were children. I told a white lie - a small one - when I said that JP, Joe, and Jude were my children. Shaking her head, she grudgingly handed over all four batting practice field passes.
Jude, JP, and Joe followed my lead and ditched the Stadium before it was over and met me at Section 27, where we walked down to the field. We showed the usher our passes and, just like that, we were on the filed.
On the field at Dodger Stadium.
I'm not sure who was more in awe and more excited, the boys or me. It was surreal, really. The grass was so green and the sky was so blue. Dodger blue. A lifeline dream fulfilled for me, at age 56, and for JP and Joe, at ages 15 and 11. For a baseball fan, and a Dodger fan, it was perfect. Perfect.
We watched the Dodgers take batting practice first, then the Pirates. We saw the players participating in various drills when the weren't batting. Short hop ground ball drills. Shagging fly balls. All of the pregame stuff. All of the good stuff for baseball fans like the three of us.
It was fascinating watching the players and coaches interact with each other and with the fans. The Dodgers' manager, Dave Roberts, was particularly jovial in taking time to talk to many of the fans watching batting practice. He signed autographs and posed for photographs. Although I am far from a Dave Roberts fan as a baseball manager, I am a fan of his as a human being, particularly after watching him talk to so many of the children that were gathered around the security rope separating them from the field.
When the Pirates took the field, my friend, Andy, ambled over. It was great to see him. He spent several minutes with the boys and me, talking baseball and hitting. I thanked him profusely, of course, for what for me, was the ultimate hookup. Andy gave the boys brand new baseballs, which was an unexpected (and appreciated) gift.
The boys got a couple of autographs from Pirates' players. Connor Joe signed Joe's baseball and Andrew McCutchen signed JP's baseball.
As batting practice ended, we made or way to our seats in the Loge section on the third base side. When I saw Jeff and his family already seated, I breathed a sigh of relief, because I had been worried that I had not properly transferred the tickets and parking pass to him. Thankfully, he received the tickets on his cell phone as he drove to the game, so he was able to park and enter Dodger Stadium without any difficulty.
The Dodgers won the game, 5 - 2. We saw Julio Urias pitch for the Dodgers and get the win. We also saw Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy hit home runs for the Dodgers. And, in a twist of fate that only made the game more memorable, my friend, Andy, got tossed late in the game for arguing balls and strikes. The boys and I couldn't believe it.
We left just before the game ended, found our rental SUV, and avoided most of the traffic to make it to our rental house in under an hour.
It was a day I will remember for the rest of my life. I think JP and Joe feel the same way.
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