Thank You!

Another Spring down in the record books for Tyler as his 2012 Spring Training quickly came to an end.  What a fun-filled couple of months in the Sunshine State!

My husband and I headed down the first week of February, barely escaping a ten-inch snow storm that hit the very night we left.  Of course Ty was thrilled to get out of town just in time, since all he had on his mind was throwing a baseball around in sunny Clearwater, FL.  I, on the other hand, absolutely love a giant snowfall, thus giving me an extra reason to cry my little heart out!

After waiving goodbye to my parents and our pets as we drove off down the street (hoping you're picturing that scene from the movie, Homeward Bound), I spent a good fifteen minutes crying in the passenger seat.  Soon enough however, I was content, remembering that I used my time wisely the night before downloading The Hunger Games audiobooks onto my iPod. I would finally be able to start these books that everyone was talking about! I leaned forward, plugged my iPod into the car stereo and sat back smiling, eager for the first book to begin.  After maybe the length of a paragraph, I looked over at Ty, prepared to tell him for the hundredth time just how excited I really was for this.  Before I could say a single word however, I realized I was being given "the look."  Now let's not confuse this with, what do you call them, bedroom eyes??        Nope.       I was being given the, "Really babe? I'm not too thrilled about this", look.  I was then persuaded to spend the rest of our car ride listening to my audiobooks through my own personal headphones.  Boooo.

We were welcomed again to stay a few nights with some of our family and friends during our journey to Florida.  It is always so great to have stopping points where you know someone!  Our friends in Georgia even have a pet deer that loves to give kisses and is also allowed in the house! Her name is Buttercup:

So cool!

Once we got to Florida we were welcomed with open arms by our new "host family."  They're an older couple that are Clearwater Thresher's (Phillies Class A Advanced) season ticket holders.  We had the honor of meeting them last year before my husband got moved up to AA.  If you remember, I even wrote about the Mrs. in my post from last season, as she helped me pack up the car when Ty got moved.  They absolutely love the players and genuinely care about them.  They even had some of us over last year for Easter, knowing that we couldn't be home with our own families on holidays like those.  Seriously, such wonderful people!  We were so blessed and even a little bit spoiled staying with them.  There was breakfast every morning and dinner every night.  They are both quite the awesome cooks. We had a whole wing of the house to ourselves and they even have a pool we were welcomed to use!  They were great companions to us too, as I would hang out with the Mrs. often and Ty would watch shows nightly with the Mr.  On top of all of that, they live about 30 seconds from the field; so literally, everything about it was perfect for us!  As we thanked them continuously time and time again, we were always told by the Mr. that this was their thank you to us.  Confused at first, I had him explain:

"We love to do all we can for you kids!  You've got to understand that your husband, and the rest of the ball players that come up through the system, are our nightly entertainment six months out of the year.  We love that we get the chance to watch these guys play ball and we are so appreciative that they actually play to their fullest!  These boys in the minor leagues are trying to get to the majors and we see that in their passion to play hard night after night.  We are happy to be a part of it and watch them grow, and we are happy that you wives share them with us.  So this is us giving back to you guys and letting you know that we appreciate what you do for us!"

What in the world?  I hadn't heard anything like that before.  These kind and enthusiastic words were so invigorating to me; therefore, I'm taking them and running with them...

In my latest post, "I Am Only Human", I was really giving yall a serious look inside our married life in minor league baseball.  It only speaks the truth about how time together with my husband is most certainly cut short during these crazy, beautiful baseball seasons.  NO calling in sick, NO days off, NO nights off, NO weekends off, and NO holidays off.  (Well technically they get at least one day off a month, although sometimes it's used to travel, but you get the picture.)  If you look at a baseball schedule, it's crazy. No matter how much we truly cherish this lifestyle we live, we are still faced with our own share of challenges.  After listening to what the Mr. had to say to us however, I found a new(actually old) way of looking at all of those "NOs," by looking through the eyes of the fans.

What better way to achieve that than to think back on the days of being a fan myself?

So...

I started by reminiscing back to my childhood years, back to when I was quite the shy, dorky, seven-year-old tomboy:

Awe yes, there I am! 

Note: No, I'm not adopted, and yes, my sister and I are holding our pet rabbits upside down. Now please, no more questions about this Christmas card worthy picture. :)

My cute little family lived in Colorado Springs, Colorado - home to the Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Rockies Triple A).  Every summer we'd all go out to that ballpark on numerous occasions, supplying myself with a lifetime of fun-filled memories.  It's funny though when I think back, because all of those memories really only consist of hotdogs, cotton candy, Bark in the Park (where fans are allowed to bring their dogs to certain games), and of course, my dad pushing my sister and I to ask for autographs from the random baseball players we knew nothing about.  Secretly however, I knew those players had to be a big deal; I mean, since practically every little boy looked up to them as their hero.  So I was always happy with my autographs when my dad gave me the courage to get them.

Then one day during my middle school years, my dad took one of my best friends and I to an actual Colorado Rockies game in Denver!   The atmosphere at that stadium is something I will never forget.  I remember walking in and being so overwhelmed by how much excitement the field had to offer.  After watching some of the game, and of course, downing our hotdogs and cotton candy, my dad gave us the brilliant idea to try and start the wave.  Yes, two ten-year-old girls trying to start the wave at a Major League Baseball game.  Hey Dad, let's be honest here, were you just trying to set us up for failure?  ;)   Well, we began our attempt.  At first, we had a couple fans yell at us as they were trying to keep book from the outfield, letting us know we were in their way and that if we wanted to do the wave then we should go to a football game.  A little discouraging.  Thanks to the help of a random, ridiculously drunk man in our section however, the wave was a success!  Obviously a very proud moment of my ten year life, I can still remember that wave going around all three levels of the stadium seven times!

Alright, so where am I going with this exactly?

In my story above, I have already explained.  What it all narrows down to is that the fans of baseball love their baseball, and for many different reasons at that.  The history, the team, the players, the stats, the food, the music, the atmosphere, you name it!  Baseball is in fact America's Pastime, which is why you're guaranteed to look around the diamond and observe the following almost every night: a father taking his son to his first game, a couple enjoying a date night together, a few old men conversing about top prospects while keeping book and reminiscing about the good ol' days, a group of beautiful girls trying their best to get the cutest baseball player's attention, a family eagerly awaiting the post-game fireworks show, and a man and all his buddies obnoxiously pounding down beer after beer after beer after beer.  You see, the fans will always come, and no matter how different their reasonings might be, they'll all be wearing the same jersey and singing the same song during the seventh-inning stretch.

Goodness that pumps me up for the next home game already! :)

Can I just take a second to say thank you though?
Because I sincerely mean it.

Through a fan's passion for the game, I have come up with a new way of looking at all of the minor challenges we are faced with; it goes like this:

Although there is NO calling in sick for my husband, I know there are fans out there that call in sick solely to attend my husband's place of work.

Although my husband has NO days off, I know there are fans out there that spend their days off at my husband's job.

Although my husband has NO nights off, I know there are fans out there that spend their nights off in my husband's "office."

Although my husband has NO weekends off, I know there are fans out there that spend their weekends off traveling on the road to support my husband on his "business trips."

and

Although my husband has NO holidays off, I know there are fans out there that spend their holidays at my husband's place of employment.


(Now obviously I'm not talking only about Ty's actual games he's pitching in. I'm using these expressions as a whole, meaning somebody somewhere is heading/has headed to a baseball game at some point in one of these circumstances.)

You fans truly make all the little sacrifices that Ty and I are faced with on a daily basis completely worth it!  Thank you so much for enjoying baseball, because if it weren't for the fans, my husband might have NO job at all.  I will gladly accept all of those other "NOs" I've mentioned above to avoid that one! The opportunity I have to go to a baseball game every night to watch my husband do what he loves to do is such a wonderful blessing.  What's even better to me though, is knowing that he can share that with people that are eager to attend a baseball game as well, whatever their reasoning might be. So thank you for attending, and see yall out at the field this summer!

I hope everyone enjoyed Spring Training 2012 as much as I did!  I really can't complain about all of the beach time I got in with the other wives; it was such a blast!!

My husband also had a great spring.  He was officially told the day before camp broke that we would be starting out the season in AA again with the Reading Phillies.  We were very happy to be heading north, but we never quite got the time to settle in.

Holy April...