Tides are In

 A couple of weekends ago, my sister came into town from DC, and my uncle noticed that the Norfolk Tides, our local minor baseball league team, were offering a deal for Buy 5 tickets, Get 5 tickets free. Put them together and what do you have? Family baseball night. Hooray!

We set out to Harbor Park on a drizzly Saturday night hoping that the rain would hold off so that we could see the Tides play the Rochester Red Wings. It also happened to be Navy Appreciation Night, which meant that we got to listen to the Navy band, see a group of young men and women be inducted into the service, and cheer for a few military men and women (and military spouses) who were being recognized that evening. I feel like nothing says Norfolk like the Navy, and so I was extra proud of my hometown when I saw the crowd that had turned out that night.

Our seats were fantastic -- right behind home plate, which meant that A. got to see most of the action unfold only a few feet away. She was entranced by everything that was going on -- she kept up a pretty steady stream of commentary that could give the official Tides announcer a run for his money ("That man goes up there. He hits the ball. He running! Wow, he run!") For all that, I still think that she was more into the games in-between innings than she was the actual baseball game -- she cheered harder for the teams racing to build a giant hamburger than she did any time one of our players got a hit. (Although the hamburger race was very exciting that night, with one team running the wrong way and another forgetting the cheese).





We also introduced Anouk to cotton candy while we were at Harbor Park that fateful Saturday. She was definitely a fan of that, eating almost one whole bag by herself and then crashing hard from the sugar high. This coincided with the point at which the rain started in earnest, so we left at the top of the 7th inning. But we still felt like we got a good amount of excitement out of the evening -- we couldn't have asked for more.*

*Except maybe the Tides to not get shut out, but that's a small thing, right?

Go team! Have you ever been to a Tides game? What's your local minor league team called? (I still think Richmond has the best with the Flying Squirrels).