Sunday, October 10, 2010

The Heart Wants Affection

Yesterday I went to my first professional sporting event, unless you count Nascar as a professional sporting event, which I really don't. It was Game 3 of the series, Rangers against Tampa Bay. This series is their first in the postseason, which the Rangers hadn't been to in 11 years. So, not only was it my first professional sporting event to attend, it was kind of a big deal.

My seat was ill-placed; the ticket reads "obstructed view". What this meant was that a few rows down from where I was sitting was a pole that blocked my line of sight to home plate. While this seems an awful lot like a disadvantage, let me be the first to tell you that it worked out in my best interest. You see, in order to be able to see the batters, I had to lean to my right to see around the pole. It wasn't enough to make me uncomfortable, and it came with a benefit; Noticing that I was trying to lean far enough to see better, but without getting in his way, James snaked an arm around me and pulled me close to him, grinning as he told me that he wouldn't bite.

At the bottom of the 7th inning, Kinsler slammed a homerun for our Rangers, eliciting wild cheers from the crowd. James and I were no different, jumping up with everyone else, yelling, and clapping our hands in the air together, holding on to each other like we had just scored the run ourselves. (Which, by the way, we did. But we'll not get into that here.)

When the game was over, it was clear that we had lost, but we took comfort in the fact that we lived to fight another day, and we still have the advantage. We strolled around the ballpark, James showing me how different it might have looked had we been sitting further over, towards first base, or behind home plate. The game had been a sellout, so the crowds were thick as we left; We held hands to avoid getting separated, and certainly much longer than there was any actual need to.

We left the ballpark, headed for food and then home, and even as the night wound down and it got quite late, I just couldn't shake that elated feeling.

Best.Date.Ever.

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