Waiting on a Friend

Clare and I made it to the ballpark 20 minutes before starting time yesterday afternoon, only we needn’t have bothered. We had a two-hour, 40-minute rain delay ahead of us. So, we walked around the Rate and did what all people do at the mall—we shopped. But we couldn’t find a Munetaka Murakami tee-shirt to fit Leo. After we ran out of souvenir stands and team stores to visit, we did the other thing you do at the mall—we ate. Then, we walked some more before settling into not-too-wet seats to wait for the game to start. Another White Sox game with an opener, another loss. Chris Murphy opened by retiring the first four batters he faced, at which point manager Vibes Venable thought it was time to bring in Erick Fedde, who proceeded to do what he does best, which is to put runners on base and try to get out of it. It was a game of If’s: If Colson Montgomery hadn’t committed an error setting up two Guardians’ runs in the seventh; if Steven Kwan hadn’t gotten a great jump on Randal Grichuk’s line drive with the tying run sure to score; if Joe Rock didn’t give back the run the Sox scored in the seventh (and if he hadn’t walked three batters to go with a single); if Chase Meidroth had played within himself. Meidroth stranded two runners in scoring position in both the seventh and tenth innings. Guardians 4 Sox 3. I hate watching the Sox lose, but at least it was tolerable this time because of the company. My daughter knows her baseball, and she’s got some strong beliefs about parenting, as in not bringing babies to the ballpark. It was just the two of us. The Sox were down to their final out in the bottom of the ninth, when Braden Montgomery homered; Grichuk followed on the next pitch for back-to-back jacks. And Clare screamed like a kid. She also screamed at Rock, but we won’t get into that. My daughter had such a good time she decided we all had to come back in a couple of weeks, only this time we bring Leo along for his first-ever Sox game.