His First Game

The stadium loomed before them. Coming down the back entrance in the station wagon, Mikey sat in the front seat, his dad's arm over the seat, left hand tapping out a beat on the steering wheel. Over the radio, Credence played "Put Me in Coach." Mikey was singing along, had just gotten through "I'm ready to play," when they came around the bend and he caught his first up-close-and-personal glimpse of Angel Stadium. His voice caught and he stopped cold.

"Cat got your tongue, kiddo?," his father asked. His dad looked over at him, smiling the way he did when funny, memorable things happened to his only son. Mikey blushed, turned his head and kept staring intently at the shrubs as they moved slowly past. The music continued playing, but Mikey's dad turned it way down, slowly idling forward toward the parking booth. "This is her." Mikey turned back to look at the monolith, the embarrassment apparently forgotten. "You know, I first came to a game here when I was about your age? Yep, the stadium opened in '66 and I was maybe 7 or 8. I've come to more games here than I can count, champ, but this is going to be the best one yet."

"Yeah, you know it!" The boy fidgeted in his seat, hunted out his glove and clutched it in his lap.

Pulling up to the the parking booth, Mikey's dad paid the 8 dollars and turned to the right, parking in the same area he had always parked in. As it was a day game, the two put on sunscreen, sunglasses and ballcaps. Mikey shoved his hand in his glove and drove his opposite fist into the web repeatedly, whistling the Darth Vader tune all the while. They locked up and began making their way to the stadium entrance, Mikey taking 2 steps to his dad's one. The boy got a new feeling up his neck, tingly and happy, making him bounce a little more and talk a little less. He didn't know what to expect of his first ballgame. Outside of baseball and hot dogs, everything was so new.

They came to the ticket-takers and Mikey's dad handed him his own ticket. Feeling it in his hands for the first time, the boy grew more and more excited. People were everywhere, the scents were new and, as they walked into the shade of the stadium a breeze met him in the face, pushing his bangs into his eyes. They got hot dogs, huge sodas and nachos. Mikey carried the gloves and his dad managed to handle everything else. They sat at the very top of the stadium, down the right field line. The boy couldn't believe how large everything was, how the stadium shook with the roar of the crowd, how it seemed like it was its own animal.

In the fourth, they got cotton candy; in the fifth, it was peanuts. In the seventh, they moved down two levels, the boy very quiet and scared of being caught, his father dragging him forward, telling him to be confident and "be cool. Just ... just be cool." They sat down much lower than their original seats and, this time, Mikey could make out the faces of the players, read the numbers on the backs of their jerseys and could see them spit through their teeth. The two sang all of the fight songs, stomped their feet and participated in the wave.

The Angels won that day, beating the Red Sox 12-0. On the way out of the stadium, the boy reasoned he was now a "real fan" since he had now been to a baseball game. His dad, naturally, agreed. "It's true, Mikey. There's no turning back now."

That night, Mikey dreamed he lived in the stadium, his uncles were the starting line-up and his dad managed the whole thing.