We are a baseball family. We don’t play or anything, but come March you can feel the electricity in the air. Pitchers and catchers have reported and the rest of the players are soon to follow – if they haven’t already. The grapefruit league is about to start and the regular season is right on it’s heels. I have known The Dad for almost 9 years and he’s always been a huge baseball fan and of the Blue Jays especially. A lot of people jumped on the bandwagon last season, happy that they were “finally” winning. Not The Dad, noooo. He has been behind them through thick and thin; cheering them on, complaining about some trades, celebrating others. Every year for his youngest brother’s birthday, he gets tickets to the Home Opener (provided that it doesn’t fall on the first or last two days of Passover – as it is wont to do).

From the months of April until October, our nights are spent with baseball. Even the kids know that when baseball is on, we don’t bug Aba. Now, while my father was a Tigers fan, I am, to his great chagrin, a Jays fan. I’ve become more of an avid spectator since The Dad and I got together. I don’t really have a choice, so I’ve adjusted quite nicely I think. Before we got married, we partook in the Jewish “Golden Week”, which is when the bride and groom do not see each other for the week before the wedding, not laying eyes on one another until the Bedekin (where the groom is brought to the bride with much fanfare and he puts the veil over her face). How did we spend our last day before the Golden Week? Why, at a Jays game, of course. I remember that we didn’t win that day, but it didn’t matter.

I took Peanut to his first Jays game. It was a weekday afternoon game and I got tickets to sit in the 100 level (a BIG deal when you’re used to the 500 level) and off we went to find our seats. On the way, we passed Jamie Campbell and Gregg Zaun doing some of their pre-game chatter. As they went off to take a break, Gregg said that he wanted to eat his sandwich. I was kind of fangirling as he was my favourite Jays player. I asked him for a picture as it was Peanut’s first Jays game and he was my favourite player. He was so nice and stopped to take one with us, sandwich in hand. It came out blurry and he felt bad and said that he had to eat quickly, but to come back after the game to see him and he’d take another one. We won that day and were well on our way to doing so when I decided that I should head out with Peanut during the bottom of the 8th. I am NOT a fan of crowds and did not want to maneuver through them with a 6 month old. As I was strapping Peanut in, I heard this whistle. I turn around to see Gregg motioning for us to follow him. He took us into their lounge and said that we could get that un-blurry picture now. Peanut had no idea what was happening, but I sure did!! He was such a nice guy and HUGE in person. If I was a boy coming to meet a daughter of his, I’d run clear in the other direction, nice or not!!

Now, we proceeded to take Peanut to a few Jays games. Some here, some in other places.Basically, The Dad works the Jays into our family vacations (we even went to Dunedin for a day when we were on our honeymoon in Florida because the Grapefruit League was going!) because he loves it THAT much. So far, we’ve gone to Detroit to see the Jays take on the Tigers (loss), to Atlanta to see the Jays take on the Braves (loss) and the rest here in Toronto. We took GreenBean to Pittsburgh (PNC Park is STUNNING, btw) where the Jays won! That was well worth the 5am wakeup needed to make the drive down! Boo has yet to go to a Jays game, but if I know The Dad as well as I think that I do, he’ll work that into this year’s family vacation, too.

What is the point of this post? There isn’t one, really. I’m just letting you into our lives a bit more. That and Pitchers and Catchers report in 31 days and The Dad is already excited…

Peanut with his “Auntie Jooooleeee” in Detroit

Toronto