Some funny stories from the night:
1. As we were driving to the Ballpark, I remembered that I forgot Luke's glove. When Luke expressed concern about his forgotten glove, my dad told him it was okay, that they could just catch the ball in their caps. Of course, Luke had to wear his baseball cap when he saw Papa wearing his. Well we get into the Ballpark, eat dinner (more on that in a minute), and Luke asked for his cap. I handed it to him, but he didn't put it on. He just held it. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I'm waiting for the ball."
In the bottom of the first inning, Vlad Guerrero hit a home run to center field. Luke was excited to see the fireworks, but afterwards he looked sad, so I asked him what was wrong. His response: "I wanted to catch the ball." He took the whole catching-the-ball-in-the-hat thing very seriously.
2. Luke LOVES nachos! He wanted a hot dog for dinner, but when he saw my nachos, he quickly abandoned his hot dog. My dad ended up getting another thing of nachos and Luke ate the majority of mine and Papa's nachos. He practically licked the container of cheese. His favorite part was dipping the chips in the cheese.
3. After the fourth inning, Luke started to get a little antsy in the seats. He wanted to go walk around. So I took him to the Sports Park located behind center field. There are a lot of games and activities for kids who can't sit through a whole nine innings without some form of entertainment. Luke loved looking at everything, but to my surprise, he said he wanted to do something. There was an activity where you could throw the baseball at the target to try and pitch a strike - and that's what he wanted to do. So I went and got two tokens and stood in line with him, totally not expecting him to actually go through with it - after all there were people around and he's super shy Luke. But he did it! He got up there and he threw four baseballs...they didn't get anywhere near the wall but at least he tried! I was so proud of him. Then a really nice kid gave us two vouchers for two tokens because he was done playing so Luke got to do it again. This time he wanted Papa to watch him throw the baseballs. So I called my dad over from our seats, where he was watching the game.
4. Luke's favorite thing in the Sports Park was the Coca-Cola Wiffle Ball Park, where kids can try to hit home runs with wiffle balls. He was dying to do it, too, but he was too little. So we had to watch the other kids bat. For-ev-er. He did not want to leave!
We finally drug him away from the wiffle ball park to see the Nolan Ryan statue. In all my years going to Rangers games, I've never taken a picture of the statue.
Notice a different colored hat in the next pictures? Luke convinced Papa that he needed a Rangers cap. I tried to persuade him to get one that would match his shirt better, but that's what he went with. And Mr. I'm-Almost-Three-And-I-Have-An-Opinion-About-Everything would not change his mind. Papa got him the kid size hat so it would fit him for a long time, but it's still a little big now so he wore it backwards so he could see.
Finally a picture of Luke and Mommy!
We were all set to leave during the top of the 9th - Luke decided he had to potty and the Rangers were up 4-2 so we figured we'd sneak out as soon as the game was over. But then Naftali Feliz gave up two runs so they played the bottom of the 9th. Luke donned his rally cap - and it worked! Rangers won 5-4.
Needless to say, Luke was exhausted by the time the game was over...but he didn't want to leave. He did not understand why we weren't going to wait and talk with the Rangers players afterwards...I guess that comes from us waiting to talk with his Uncle Sam and Uncle Jake after all of their ball games! He passed out not long after we started driving home, clutching his new Rangers cap from Papa.
