Dear Liza,
Did you know that the Portland area has a professional baseball team? Well, it does!
And last week we drove west about 11 miles to Ron Tonkin Field in Hillsboro to see our Hops play the Vancouver Canadians. It was a lively night out.
The Hops are the High A level farm team for the Arizona Diamondbacks, an official professional team, and it shows. The playing was great, and so were the amenities… Scoreboards, food, drinks, restrooms, all very up-town.
Grandpa Nelson had gotten us tickets along the first base line so we would be in the shade for the evening game. Our weather has been in the high nineties and he didn’t want us to get roasted! We were warm, but not uncomfortable.
As the game got started, we saw that the Hops players had chosen their own ‘walk up’ music (that plays as that player comes up to bat), but the visiting Canadians walked up to music chosen as a play on their name. A Canadian player named Spain walked up to Robert Goulet’s “Red Ships of Spain”, and Cade Doughty walked up to Julie Andrews’ “Do Re Mi” from “The Sound of Music”.
It was delightful, these odd snippets of music coming around with the batting order. During the evening we also heard bits of “Uptown Funk”, “Zorba the Greek”, “Sugar Sugar” and “I Love Rock and Roll”.
Besides following the game, there were other diversions, like a bus tire rolling race, karaoke sing-along, and air guitar contests. These were video-broadcast to the big screen so everyone could enjoy the fun, even if it was happening across the stadium.
The sun went down, and the Canadians’ Cade Doughty made their only run in the 9th inning. By then, the Hops had scored 11. It’s always fun when ‘our’ team wins, even if we just met.
We gathered our things and joined the flow of folks out into the parking lot and Auntie Bridgett drove us home through an orange sunset.
Summer in Portland is amazing, active, and wonderful…. If you have the stamina!
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 